Mid Autumn Festival 2023

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival and the sky is cloudy. I am sure that it will be too at night and the moon will be obscured. I had one poem already composed for the occasion but with the new circumstances, it would be as great and so had to come up with another. Completed after my jog.

1 夜臨中秋蔽月霧 Night approacheth Mid-Autumn with fog veiling the moon,
2 烏雲密聚嘉州佈 Dark clouds densely gathered and spread all over California.
3昔比今非莫要愁 Fret not in sorrow as the present is unlike in the past,
4 畫雕壁映嫦娥到 With walls etched in images of the Moon Goddess descending.

1 The use of fog is to imply that the low-lying areas cannot view the moon.

2 Implies there’s no need to go to higher places or elsewhere either since the entire state is obscured.

3 The pivot line turning to hope because we are now living in a modern age.

4 There is no direct mention of “descending”, “my room” in the original. These are used to capture a more vivid imagery to the translation. What is unspoken in the original is understood. Here the images refer to a video being played on giant wall TV.

Friday, 29 September 2023