Not a symphony, a cacophony A familiar problem to those who drink too much a party, falling asleep and waking up, all through the night. Drinking Then Waking up at Night, a poem by Bai Juyi (白居易772 – 846). Drinking Then Waking up at Night. At dusk, after drinking, I went home to lie down,In…
Category: Bai Juyi
Night Music
Practice, rest, repeat, Bai Juyi says to those learning to play an instrument. Perhaps written ca. 818, when Bai Juyi was sent in dispair deep in Sichuan, to distant Chongzhou (considered the birthplace of Taoism). There Bai began to learn the guzheng, a Chinese zither. The zhēng (zither) able to create ten thousand sounds of…
Spring Poem, Bai Juyi
Spring Poem If she turned and asked, would her parrot say why she is sad? The Tang poet, Bi Juyi (白居易, 772–846) gives us this image in Spring of a girl standing on the porch outside her bedroom. The flowers in the trees are blooming, but furrowed eyebrows show the sorrow in her heart. As…
Dreaming of Jiangnan
An old man in his seventies tries to remember his youthful days in Jiangnan and can’t. [Note. In a narrow sense, Jiangnan is the area south of the Yangtze River (江, Jiang) that includes Hangzhou and Suzhou, near modern day Shanghai.] Dreaming of Jiangnan Sweet JiangnanA place I knew well.At sunrise, the river flowers are…
The Winter Solstice
The 14th century Japanese Buddhist monk and author Yoshida Kenko (1283-1352) kept a book of Bai Juyi’s poems, saying it is “a most wonderful comfort to sit lone beneath a lamp, book in hand, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.” That statement forever rings true. Darling Xiangling, on Winter…
Sunset on the River
Sunset on the River or Twilight River Chant, by Bai Juyi. The unnamed river is likely the Qiantang which flows through Hangzhou where Bai Juyi served as governor.* The setting sun spreading from the center,Half the river trembling, the other half is red.I pity the third night of September,Its pearl-like dew, bow-like moon. Sunset on…
On the Lake, x2
Two short poems by Bai Juyi (772-846), a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty. Both poems are titled On the Lake, 池上, Chí Shàng. The first poem is about the nearly imperceptible nature of a Buddhist monk. The second about a mischievous child trying to hide his crime. One Mountain monks playing chessHidden in some…
When a flower is not a flower
Flowers are not flowers, fog is not fogWhen they come at night and leave at first light.This Dream, this Spring, that often comes to meAnd, as the clouds, leaves not a trace. When flowers are not flowers, Bai Juyi 花 非 花，雾 非 雾夜 半 来，天 明 去来 知 春 梦 几 多 时去 似…
Lovely Jiangnan, Bai Juyi
Sometimes when someone is punished and exiled, one falls in love with the very place one is sent to for punishment. This was so for Bai Juyi (772 – 846), who was banished from the capital of Chang’an for an indiscretion and sent south of the Yangtze River to what is generally called Jiangnan, 江南,…
Evening Swallow, Bai Juyi
A lovely little poem by Chinese poet Bai Juyi about moving on in late life. 晚燕百鸟乳雏毕, 秋燕独蹉跎 去社日已近, 衔泥意如何 不悟时节晚, 徒施工用多 人间事亦尔, 不独燕营窠 白居易 Evening SwallowWhile other birds are busy feeding chicks, The swallow, alone, wastes time.Joining others at the break of dawn, A beak of mud, now, so what?Who doesn’t realize the season is…
100 Tang Poems 