BLOOMING Vol. II 《花開之時·下冊：流光》

BLOOMING Vol. II: Fleeting Light is the second volume in the poetry-and-painting series by Chinese American poet and painter Victoria Huiying Chen. Where Vol. I celebrated life in full bloom, Fleeting Light turns to the passage of time - in Chinese, liuguang, light that flows like water, years that slip quietly away. Presented in bilingual Chinese and English, the volume gathers her recent poems and paintings.

Time, memory, and the turnings of a life run through these pages: morning and evening light, the changing of seasons, journeys and homecomings, meetings and partings. Chen catches the moments that vanish even as they arrive - a flower opening and falling, a lamp flickering on and off, a backward glance, a farewell - and holds them still between poem and painting.

Born in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, in 1950, Victoria Huiying Chen immigrated to the United States in 1980. After decades in business, she took up the brush in 2014 and turned to literary writing in late 2023; she has since written more than seven hundred poems. Fleeting Light carries the ease and clear sight of life's second half: time takes away the years, and leaves behind serenity and compassion.

In this volume, poetry and painting continue to light each other. Painting holds color, intuition, and the instant of feeling; poetry unfolds memory, time, and reflection. Her signature "olive poems" arrange lines long and short into visual shapes, so that the poem itself becomes a picture.

Fleeting light is both passing and eternal. When the light has flowed past, art is what keeps it. This is a book of time, memory, and renewal.

《花开之时·下册：流光》是旅美华人诗画艺术家陈慧英（Victoria Huiying Chen）"花开之时"诗画系列的第二卷。上册"芳華"写盛放，本卷"流光"写时间的流转--"流光"取自时光如流、光阴易逝之意，全书以中英双语呈现作者近年来的诗歌与绘画新作。

本卷围绕时间、记忆与生命的流转展开：晨昏的光影、四季的更替、远行与归来、相聚与别离。陈慧英以细腻的笔触捕捉那些稍纵即逝的瞬间--一朵花的开落、一盏灯的明灭、一次回眸、一段告别，并将它们凝固在诗与画之间。

陈慧英1950年出生于浙江温州，1980年移居美国，在从商数十年后，于2014年拿起画笔、2023年底转向文学写作，至今已创作七百余首诗歌。在"流光"中，她把人生下半场的从容与通透注入作品：时间带走的是年华，留下的是沉淀后的清明与慈悲。

在本卷中，诗与画继续彼此照亮。绘画留住色彩、直觉与瞬间感受，诗歌则展开记忆、时间与哲思；独具特色的"橄榄诗"以文字的长短疏密构成视觉形态，让诗歌本身也成为一幅画。

"流光"既是易逝，也是永恒。当光影流过，艺术把它们留了下来。这是一部关于时间、记忆与重生的生命之书。