Elusive Perfection

 

The first line was inspired while doodling with the brush before my daily jog. By the time, the jog had ended, I had something concrete and after a few refinements…

1 山有高低水深淺 Mountains are high, mountains are low, waters be deep or shallow,
2 聖無長短人惡善 Nary a fault a sage has but good or in every man.
3 天庭凡間莫黑白 There is no black and white in the heavens nor on earth,
4 尋取臻選難入眠 In choosing the way to perfection, then sleep be no more.

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Brief Glimpse To A Passerby

 

The impetus came from a number of unfurled events that coalesced into one creation of a poem in the end. David Badagnani from FB’s Chinese Poetry group replied to my comment on his poem via a link because of the term 秦樓楚舘 that I gave as an idiom to show him.  This was to show that I didn’t simply search on the internet to verify the allusion of 秦樓,  the name of the place where 弄玉 and 蕭史 lived. 

Then I remembered a Cantonese opera about their story. A quick check on YouTube showed  that the opera movie is called 誇鳳乘龍, staring 任劍輝, 白雪仙, 梁醒波, 任冰兒 and 李香琴. Since I had forgotten about the plot and because of the poetry in the songs, I watched the entire movie again with some fast forwarding. 

The hero recited the poem which I took as inspiration.

一曲簫聲繞畫樑 A flute melody coils around the painted pillars,
清風掃盡禁街霜 And a wind of purity swept away the snow on palace walkways.
等閑莫把霓裳弄 Tease not the rainbow skirt in carelessness,
百鳥聞聲要朝凰 For upon the song heard, birds of all kinds, to the phoenix, an audience sought.

It was then that an inspiration formed in my head. At first, I thought 繞 was 掛 but found out my error very much later after the first line of the poem had been formed in my head. Perhaps, it was because my inner nature refused to be defeated and went back to the video and tried to listen to the Cantonese while staring hard at the blurred character in the song’s Chinese subtitles. Finally, I solved the problem but by now, it was too late to change anything…

There are instances in life while walking on a street, a passer-by so gorgeous looking that in your heart, an insatiable yearning arose, wanting to have a second look even knowing that it is not fated to know each other.  And because of this, courage is non-existent to catch up with destiny.  One has to know from the look of oneself in the mirror. 

Lament fills the soul as joy evaporated with each step of that shadow going away and never to return but in dreams…

1 玉笛一曲掛霧穿 A jade flute melody pierced through the hanging fog,
2 金風掃盡紫烟泉 And golden winds swept away the purple mists of fairy pools.
3 赤壁瓊閣影無踪 Naked cliffs and jasper terraces revealed but nary a trace of shadows,
4 但求次見蓬山鸞 If only the phoenix of the Blessed Isles be once more seen.

1 Most probably a jade studded flute since the sound quality is not as warm as those made from wood.

2 Fairy pools have mists tinged in purple surrounding them. “Golden winds” a reference to autumn as it is also associated with the element metal. Gold is a more poetic word than metal.

3 Of course all the immortals were startled and left when the protective fog is blown away.

4 Mt Horai, the main mountain in the Blessed Isles of the Eastern Ocean.

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Yearnings Of The Past

 

I had been playing some video games on the phone throughout the night till 6am of the next morning before going to bed. In that 4 hour period of sleep, I did not sleep well as my mind was plagued by dreams which I forget upon waking up. 

However, the first two lines came easily during that state of semi-consciousness in which a dream makes it so logical to start a poem. After my jog, I was able to complete it with refinements.

1 烟雨矇矓船舟岸 The misty drizzle obscuring boats by the banks,
2 銀光隱約照水寒 And silvery light wafting in and out makes the waters look so cold.
3 萬里歲月千杯夢 Time spent on long journeys are with dreams made from a thousand cups,
4 念家舊陳童年看 With thoughts of the family, old furnishings seen with eyes of childhood.

3 Literally, “ten thousand”. All these numbers are just figures of speech. To retain some of the local flavor of the language, I went with direct translation.

4 家 means family, house or home. “ancestral home” is not in original text but is implied culturally.

In ancient times, members of the immediate family were expected to live in a common abode even if they have their own family. Modernity due to job opportunities had changed this.

Monday, March 13, 2023

Was able to compose this one on the second round of my jog.  It was a good day for my mental exercises.

1 雙親撫養無限階 Parents place no limit place on rearing their children,
2 莫惜雨打風吹曬 Sacrificing under the beatings of the rain, wind and sweltering heat.
3 羽毛豐滿處遠飛 And yet when their plumage is full, everywhere that is far they’ll fly,
4一日旋還孽子債 One day that karma returns in the form of your own children.

Monday, March 13, 2023

Such Is The Life of Mortals

It had been raining all day and night yesterday. This morning, the rain had abated but is still sort of misty wet. As I jog, I could hear the dogs barking in the animal shelter for their lunch feeding. The second stanza was inspired when there was a brief respite of bright sunshine broken through the dark clouds and by the time I was done with my jog, I was drenching in sweat.

This poem compares elements of nature to that of despots in making life miserable for the populace.

1 獨步微覺烟雨沾 Feeling the slight misty rain as I walked alone,
2 天冷地濕斜路險 The sky is cold, the ground is wet and inclined roads are treacherous.
3 途徑偏僻犬聲遠 My route is remote but barking dogs I hear from a distance,
4 髮尖危滴有幾點 And upon the tips of my hair are few droplets of water.

5 長夢繼續短人生 Dreams continue to be long but life is short,
6 風吹寒刺權欺善 Cold winds piercing like the powerful oppressing the meek.
7 日破中午烏雲散 And by noon, the sun had broken through the clouds of dark,
8 衣衫未亁汗漸流 My clothes not yet dried but sweat is now slowly seeping into them.

4 Textually, 有幾點 can be a rhetorical question but in this context, just a matter-of-fact statement.

Saturday, 11 March 2023

If Destiny Allows

The original idea was to write a story about searching for the source where peach blossoms were floating downstream.  In the end, the search had to be stopped because the stream came gushing through a hole in the mountain cliffs carrying the flowers with it.  The mountains were impassable.

I didn't have the inspiration to write two or more stanzas to tell a good story.  Have to wait for sometime in the future...  In the meantime, just a placeholder, lest the idea may be forgotten.

1 過風無情銀波皺 The relentless wind passes - curling silvery ripples into frowns,
2 溪水桃花盡日愁 Peach blossoms floating an entire day upon the stream with sorrow.
3 霧鎖瀛洲紅塵隔 Enshrouding fog separates the fairy isle from the mortal world,
4 雲鞘劍嶺赤壁流 Just as clouds scabbarding sword-like ranges of naked cliffs whence it flows.

3 One of the mountains in the three Blessed Isles, the other two being 蓬萊 and方丈.

Monday, March 6, 2023

 

Four Seasons - Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn

This series of four poem began when this first poem was completed. I was on the roll and began with a second one. However, I could not think of any appropriate title for them.  Later an idea of grouping them with another of two as a series on the four seasons.

Winter

1 隆冬飛雪掃天冷 Deep is winter when snowstorms sweeps coldness into the skies,
2 縹緲臘梅枝上横 Faintly discernible are wintersweet blooming in unfettered restraint.
3 與誰爭艷獨自紅 Who can  vie with my beauty? Alone, I am most wanted,
4 東君醒後花落殘 And yet my spent blooms are falling upon the Lord of the East’s awakening.

3 Wintersweet, Chimonanthus praecox is yellow in color and does not belong to the plum family. Hence 紅 means “popular” in this context.

4 東君, the Chinese Sun God to mean springtime, when most things will grow and bloom but emblems of winter will be gone.

Friday, March 3, 2023

Spring

1 蘭心綽約望春早 Dainty is a maid wishing for an early springtime,
2 出得深閨後庭到 And from her abysmal boudoir and into the garden she could go.
3 百花久已爭艷紅 Already a hundred blooms are vying in their alluring red,
4 又恐東君莫識奴 Yet afraid that the Lord of the East does not recognize me.

1 蘭心 – orchid heart, refers to a young lady of grace and charm.

2 Unmarried girls are supposed to be under lock and key in their rooms and not allowed the outside of their homes.

4 Here, the Lord of the East could refer someone the girl likes. 奴 – slave, a self-deprecatory term for a young girl or wife.

Friday, March 3, 2023

Summer

1 荷葉碧綠四月氣 Lotus leaves are green under the weather in the Month of Four.
2 破水紅拳風吹微 Red fists bursting forth through the water as the wind is gentle.
3 晴天神怡暗香醉 A sunny day a freshed and carefree, yet inebriated to the faintly scented,
4 浮雲蜻蜓池上戲 Dragonflies jousting upon the clouds and the pond.

1 The lotus is a symbol of summer.

2 Lotus buds.

4 The reflection of clouds on the water’s surface.

Saturday, March 4, 2023

Autumn

1 重陽金菊設輝煌 So grand are the golden chrysanthemum decorations of Double Ninth,
2 妃嬪無幾賀明堂 But few imperial ladies came congratulating in the Hall of Distinction.
3 是否牡丹薔薇恩 Is it because of the love between the Peony and the Rambler Rose?
4 可憐宮花歲月黄 Alas, other palace flowers wasting into yellowness with passing years.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ninth_Festival

2 Different dynasties have different ranking systems in the imperial harem. A great reference to see how the harem ranks are translated in the following article,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Chinese_harem_system

明堂 is also known as the Hall of Enlightenment or Brightness.

http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Terms/mingtang.html

3 The peony is considered to be the queen of all flowers and as such, designated as the “national” flower. It is reputed that Empress Wu of the Tang dynasty preferred the Rosa Multiflora and has it painted with peonies to represent the “Two Holies”.

4 Or they being are afraid of Empress Wu? Those having any relationship with the Emperor always met their doom, including those who came before her. Even her own relatives died mysteriously.

Sunday, March 5, 2023

Of Yesteryears

This was written while on the last leg of my jog.

1 碧綠池塘蓮華香 Fragrance of lotus blooms fills the verdant pond,
2 水點蜻蜓浮映上 And dragonflies skimming upon floating reflections.
3 明媚好景雲烟夢 Like dreams and mists, such beauteous scenery will never last,
4 今刻何比當日陽 How can the sunlight of then be compared to those of yesteryears?

1 蓮華 sounds like 年華, youth
2 蜻蜓點水 has other connotation besides “skip deep”
3 Other meanings of 陽 can also be applied.

Sunday, February 26, 2023