Meng to Zhang: Autumn

To Zhang Ming: An autumn day, circa 735 AD, Pengze, Jiangxi Province. To Zhang Ming, the illustrious Zhang, known to the world as Zhang Jiuling, 張九齡, noted poet and Imperial Chinese minister. An Autumn Day at your grand pavilion looking off into the distanceWatching the twists and turns of rivers and mountains.Lying down, wring poetry,…

Spring Night, I hear a flute – Li Bai

Draft… Spring Night, I Hear the Flute From whose house does the sound of a jade flute flies Scattered by the Spring breeze filling Luoyang? In the middle of the night I hear the willow unfolding Who does not feel these old garden feelings In 725 or thereabouts, while in his mid-twenties, Li Bai left…

Moonlit night

When moonbeams light more than half my house And the Big Dipper and Southern Star criss-cross On such a night I sense and smell a warm spring In a cricket’s sound passing by my green window screen Geng shen yue se ban ren jia Bei dou lan gan nan dou xia Jin ye pian zhi…

A Gift to Meng Haoran – Li Bai

A Gift to Meng Haoran by Li Bai (李白) Master Meng, my heart hails you Your fame rises to the heavens With youth’s impudence, you turned away from the emperor’s kind hand Choosing woods and clouds, and now, white-haired Moon drunk, flower-bewitched, a sage of dreams But deaf to the the Emperor’s ear How I…

Dispelling Sorrow – Du Mu

Dispelling sorrow In English, the title,  遣怀, of Du Mu’s poem is often given as Dispelling Sorrow. There are other choices equally as good: Drowning my sorrows or Scattering my sorrows, for example. One could also substitute for the word sorrows: woe, unhappiness, pain, regret, and so on. A longer translation is ‘easing the ache…

Life’s illusion

Lost in Translation Beware of translations. They often miss the meaning of the words. But the greater sorrow is that they do they convey the sense of rhyme and meter. So too with this poem by poet Du Mu, which is often translated as Dispelling Sorrow, but whose literal meaning is The Awakening. The Awakening…

Garden of the Golden Valley of Shi Chong

    The Golden Valley near Lyoung, was where Emperor Wu’s wealthy offical, Shi Chong had his luxurious villa in the midst of “clear springs and verdant woods”. Life is impermanent, and political disaster descended upon Shi Chong’s paradise. Green Pearl, his favorite concubine, threw herself from a tower. Du Mu wrote this quatrain 500…

Orchid and Orange 1

Zhang Jiuling 感 遇 其 Each flower blossoms in its season, each flower has its place. And so the hermit in the forest seeks nothing more than to be allured by sweet winds and contented with natural beauty. ORCHID AND ORANGE I, by Zhang JIuling A tender orchid-leaf in spring, And a cinnamon-blossom bright in…

Cold Thoughts

In middle earth (Kansas), the temperature is minus 12 degrees Celsius. The sun is rising in the east, but clouds overhead make for a grey and cold day. The night before was clear and the Milky Way hung low in the sky, making a pathway for my thoughts to rise to the heavens. A good…