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