人生選擇 - Life's Choices

Another jogging inspiration to keep my daily routine from being a boring chore...

 Idyllic Dreams - Different Perspectives 逍遙夢 - 截然觀

松下逍遙夢 An idyllic dream under the pines,

更比醉顏紅 Is rosier than an inebriated face.
覺來醒無趣 Nothing’s interesting upon awakening,
酒臨重相逢 Another cup coming, another rendezvous.

天下逍遙夢 All idyllic dreams,
更比玫瑰紅 Are rosier than the red red rose.
指刺醒悟實 Truths awakened when fingers pricked,
年華去盡窮 So too is Youth long gone.

Sunday, June 21, 2020

Untitled

01風解流光暗香濁 The wind releases the rippling light and heavy is the unseen fragrance,

02反照古松鏡水綠 Upon the waters, reflected ancient pines in mirrored green.

03梅雨半春花落盡 Plum petal rain of half spring have all but fallen,

04桃紅隨溪無再復 And peach red blossoms swept away by the stream of no return.

1. 解: can also mean “to understand”.
    流光: flowing light i.e. glimmering; can also imply the quick passage of time.

濁: besides “polluted” has the additional meanings:

       a. “chaos”:《楚辞·屈原·渔父》舉世皆濁我獨清，眾人皆醉我獨
             醒。史记·卷七六·平原君虞卿传·太史公曰》「平原君，
             翩翩濁世之佳公子也，然未睹大体」

              b. “ordinary” “mundane”:元·馬致遠《黄粱夢·第四折》：「你不

                   是凡胎濁骨，迷本性人間受苦。」清·洪升《長生殿·第一一

                   出》：「想我濁質凡姿，今夕得到月府，好 僥幸也！」

              c. “heaviness”: 「濁聲濁氣 」, 「聲音重濁」. 《遼史. 卷五四·樂

                    志》: 》：「皆从濁至清，迭更其聲，下益濁，上益清。」

              d. One of the 28 Chinese constellations: The Net Mansion which looks 

                  like a net for catching rabbits, hence the name 畢宿 or 畢星.

               e. A surname.

The wind cannot be seen but could be felt. The light can be seen but not felt and fragrance is unseen, cannot be felt but  only be smelt.

2.The pines are real and can be touched.  Their reflections are true and exists only in the watery world. They cannot be touched.

3.Plum flowers bloom in the middle of winter.  It will be sometime midway in spring when they start to become “petal rain in the wind”.  梅雨 also denotes the rainy period between late spring and early summer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_rainy_season

4.An idea based on the classical lines, “桃花盡日隨水流, 洞在清溪何處邊”, an allusion to 桃源記. A time of innocence that is forever lost as the blossoms are floated out of fairyland. 

Tuesday, June 02, 2020

Nocturnal Entanglements - 夜纏

The 8am sun was hot and the second line came into my mind as I was jogging, imaging something cold to cool my system.  Then the afternoon weather had changed.  No longer a hot clear day but still bright even as the foggy clouds rolled in.  I suppose I was at the right place and time for this creation.

寒月高照寂寞牀 High is the cold moon shining on this empty bed,
一片雪花無聲降 A snowflake falling in silence.
窗外如夢非今夕 A dream outside the window but of not tonight,
只恨酒去伴身傍 How hateful is inebriation gone and soberness by my side.

Monday, June 01, 2020

Is That All There Is? - 就此乎?

01廣寒寂寞永東升 Lonely is the Palace of Everlasting Cold rises in the east,
02梅庭滄桑曾似盈 The decrepit Court of the Plum Blossoms was once upon in fullness.
03仙界一切雲烟夢 All fairyness are as ephemeral as the clouds and mists of dreams,
04凡塵萬象雨露情 And all mortal relationships just as fugacious as the rain and dew.

1 Referring to Yang Guifei, the favorite imperial concubine of the Tang Emperor, Hsuan Tsung. She was actually his daughter-in-law. In order to possess her, she was decreed to become a Taoist nun to serve the decease mother of her husband. Symbolically, a divorce from all earthly familial ties. After a few years, she would return to laity and thus “reborned” anew with an empty slate. In this way, the Emperor would not be considered as incestuous. This Tang Dynasty tradition/ruse is also used to prevent imperial princesses from married off to faraway barbarian chieftains. The most famous example being Empress Wu’s daughter, Princess Taiping. When the An Lushan rebellion ensued, Emperor Hsuan Tsung was forced to flee the capital. On route to Szechuan, the imperial escort refused to go further unless Yang Guifei is dead. She was blamed for the cause of the downfall of the dynasty. Later when peace was restored, the enamored emperor asked a Taoist priest to search for her soul. It was in the Lunar Palace of Eternal Cold that he found her.

2. Before Yang Guifei, the Plum Blossom concubine was the emperor’s favorite. So called because of her love for plum blossoms. In order to please her and to curry favor from the emperor, officials throughout the empire would send exotic plum blossom trees to her palace. To Yang Guifei, she is the skinny Plum Blossom Witch. The fuller rival was nicknamed as “the fat poplar lascivious bitch” (Yang means “poplar tree”. Poplar blossoms are airy and floats with the flow of the wind. 水性楊花 – watery nature of poplar blossoms”. It is short for 水性隨勢而流，楊花隨風飄蕩. The nature of water flows according to the terrain, just as poplar blossoms float with the wind). When the emperor was fleeing to Szechuan with Yang Guifei, Plum Blossom concubine was forgotten and was left behind. Various legends claimed that she either escaped and live out her life in obscurity or that she was killed by the rebels.

3-4 These lines form a couplet. This literal translation is

Immortal realm, everything is cloud mist dream

Mortal world[dust], ten-thousand phenomena rain and dew relationships

Thursday, May 28, 2020

The Long Road To Spring - 春日路遙遠

This poem was inspired by someone’s post on italki, https://www.italki.com/notebook/7460956/entry/1071949

冬寒春暖路幽遙 The quiet road of winter’s cold to the warmth of spring is long,
遲疑前程何日朝 Hesitatingly, I think of when that morning of this journey’s end I see.
今刻隆霜再無懼 This moment of harsh frost I no longer afraid.
莫恐來櫻重不嬌 For I fear not that the coming cherry blossoms won’t be again of loveliness.

Thursday, May 28, 2020

In Prepareness

  

濛瀧一遍雲烟鎖 Haziness is a stretch of clouds and mists engulfed in,
前目隱約湖水過 Before my eyes, seemingly the lake’s waters I crossed.
風雨莫測人生短 The wind and rain are uncanny and life is short,
有預措策夢何錯 But with well planned strategy, no dream can be wrong.

Wednesday, May 27, 2020