Phantasm

It started with the phrase that came into my mind...

雲居處

Many tries to complete but all seemed trivial and unnatural. Two days later, while in bed thinking of some lines for another poem, 雨落水滴終去東 that I finally came up with this…

1 黄昏雨後見無人 No one is around dusk after the rain has gone,
2 逍遙螢火點花魂 And unhurried fireflies began to wake the souls of flowers.
3 醉意夢遊雲居處 In drunken stupor, I dreamt of the place where clouds live,
4 共同嫦娥弄星辰 And with the Goddess of the Moon, we frolicked and teased the stars.

2 點 as a verb means “to touch” or “to light up” and used figuratively as “to wake”. The souls here refers to the fragrance of the flowers.

3 “where clouds live” is a place of impossibility. More of a philosophical question of where clouds sleep and rest after their day long travels.

4 I had chosen 嫦娥 rather than other poetic terms since line 3 infers the fairy realm and this continues on the theme. 弄 may also mean “to manipulate” since the light of the moon can affect the appearance of stars, as if toying with them as in this phantasm.

Thursday, August 5, 2021