Bygones

This poem was inspired when I saw the title of a song, 西安 by Noel Quinland. The wind character was then appended and an idea was formed.

1 長安舊塵昨日風 The dust in the City of Eternal Peace was once yesterday’s vogue,
2往事重重雲烟夢 Weighty is the past but misty dreams of now.
3 月冷西安然依照 And yet the moon still shines coldly upon the City of Western Peace,
4 千杯愁酒亦難逢 Drowned in a thousand cups would still bring no chance meetings back.

1 Chang’an was the imperial capital of various dynasties. It’s pinnacle of glory was reached during the Tang dynasty and after the fall of the dynasty, it was relegated to an ignominious position. For a brief time, it was considered to be the capital of the Ming Dynasty.

3 Chang’an was renamed as Si’an soon after the founding of the Ming Dynasty.

Wednesday, 13 October 2021

Old Dreams

On the same day composing 晴天風微皺銀波, this came on my way back from my walk at Point Fermin when I saw a withered leaf lying on the luscious green residential lawn…

1 草上一片枯葉見 Upon the grass, a withered leaf seen,
2 觸起餘生眼前現 What my remaining years would be, flashed before me.
3 秋來寒急紈扇收 Autumn is coming with hurried coldness and my silk fan be put away,
4 忽看金箱舊夢綿 And espied in the golden chest, old cotton clothes of my bygone dreams.

3 Putting away the silk fan because it is no longer needed for the hot summers implies that its usefulness is no more.

4 A golden chest implies wealth and silk fan is for a lady of leisure. The cotton clothes implies that the lady was from very humble origins. Perhaps she was married into wealth because of her beauty and that she lamented that she is no longer alluring in her autumn years.

Saturday, 2 October 2021

It was a very hot afternoon, about 90°F, in San Pedro but at Point Fermin, it was about 20° cooler. No matter how often I took pictures of the scenery before, it never ceases to amaze and inspire me. On the mainland, the sun is bright and hot while the yonder town Avalon like the namesake of the Arthurian legends, is always shrouded in mists; reminding me of Liu Yuxi's poem, “…東邊日出西邊雨，道是無晴卻有晴”.

1 晴天風微皺銀波 Gentle breeze on a sunny day knitting the silvery waves in frown,
2 遙遠蓬萊雲烟鎖 Far away are the Immortals Isles and shrouded in mists as always.
3 仙島雖隔今夜逢 This fairyland, separated we may be but tonight in dreams twain shall meet,
4 觀景莫歎紅塵錯 Enjoy this view of now and sigh not due to wrongs of this mundane realm.

2. The Isles of Penglai in the Eastern Ocean. It is believed that Earth immortals took up residence there. Legend has it that the First Emperor, on the advice of a magician, had himself sent with 500 virgin boys and 500 virgin girls to seek the immortality pills. It is also the Chinese version of how Japan was founded. In Japanese, these islands are known as Horai but quite different from the Chinese version. To them, these islands are west of them, naturally.

Saturday, 2 October 2021

Fishermen’s Life

1 月落西山湖水靜 The lake waters are calm as the moon descends upon the western hills,
2 日破長夢漁舟醒 And daybreak arouses fishing boats from their deep deep slumber.
3 莫怕艱難盡日歌 Dread not of hardships, but to sing all day long,
4 滿歸含歡比月明 A bountiful return will make smiles beaming brighter than the full moon.

2 “the sun breaks long dreams as fishing boats awaken”

4 “bountiful return with smiles contained (in the mouth), compare moon brightness”

Thursday, 23 September 2021

Scapegoating

1 松下悶酒客來遲 My visitor is tardy as I drowned sorrows in my cup,
2 花殘葉舞已秋時 Autumn it must, for withering flowers and leaves are dancing in the air.
3 瞬目流星何復還 And in a blink of the eye, gone is the shooting star, never to return,
4 情斷莫怨金風刺 Blame not the stabbing cold of fall when a relationship has floundered.

1 One of the 歲寒三友 “Three Friends of Winter”. The other two being the bamboo and the plum as they are impervious to the effects of winter. The pine symbolizes longevity, everlasting or uprightness.

4 情 can either be a general relationship or more specifically, love of a sexual nature. I chose the former meaning due to the implication of line 1.  斷 means ended, broken or severed.

Saturday, September 25, 2021

An Updated Poem

This poem was composed and posted on Facebook to a friend in 2013,

觀海聽濤 View the ocean and listen to the waves,
看山醉月 Look at the mountain and be drunk by the moon.
心平緒安 In calmness, peace is in the heart,
夢遠人何 Dreams are far away and people no more.

Then someone changed it to one that rhymes...

觀海聽濤, View the ocean the ocean and listen to the waves,

眺山望巒. Looking from afar at the mountain ranges,
心平緒靜, In quietude, there is calmness in the heart,
夢柔境暖. Sweet dreams of a warm surrounding.

And eight years later, my updated version...

1 觀海聽濤, Some look to the ocean and hear the waves,
2 尋山問道. Others search the mountains and seek enlightenment.
3 桂折功名, Yet more attained worldly success,

4 春去人何. But when spring is gone, where are they now?

1 As the poem is written so concisely that there can be different interpretations. Another translation could be,

I had looked at the ocean and listened its waves,

I had sought enlightenment amongst the mountains.
I had attained the success of officialdom,

But now no longer young, where is that youth?

2 Chinese mystics, immortals etc. live as hermits in order to get away from the mundane world so that they would not be disturbed. In the original text, the word used is “Tao”, as in Taoism.

3 To break an Osmanthus branch is to attain officialdom by passing the imperial exams to lift oneself and family from obscurity. This is the only path opened to all for if one was born a farmer, a farmer till death. The Osmanthus is one of the inhabitants in the moon along with the three-legged toad, the jade rabbit and of course, the moon Goddess, Chang-O.

4 Spring here denotes energy of the living.

Tuesday, 17 September 2013

Floating Red - 浮紅

This one was inspired by the instrumental piece, “Terra Cotta Warrior” by Noel Quinland. The music reminded me of the perceived carefree ranked Ch’ing Dynasty concubines swaying their large handkerchiefs in the wind as they trod on their platform shoes. In the end, the theme changed into something else as I remembered a story I read eons ago…

1 閑渡銀橋巾帕揚 Crossing leisurely the silver bridge a kerchief fluffed,
2 靜流金水玉帶長 Quietly flows the golden water and the jade belt is long.
3 深宮禁地出入難 Difficult it is to enter and exit the forbidden palace,
4 唯託浮紅人間嘗 Except to entrust the floating red to sample the ordinary world for me.

1 Just a euphemism for a grand looking bridge. The action of fluffing her handkerchief is to distract her action of dropping the leaf into the waters in case if someone was looking.

https://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/beijing/forbidden-city/inner-golden-water-river.htm

2 The river moat in the Forbidden City is known as the Golden Water or the Jade Belt. Here it just means a stream/ditch flowing through the palace.

4 Usually, 人間means the mortal world. In this context, the world of the ordinary people. The palace is considered to be heaven on earth – the Great Within (大內).

This is an allusion to 流紅記 (An Account of Flowing Red), written in the Sung Dynasty about an event that took place in the Tang Dynasty. A scholar was walking by the banks of the imperial stream flowing out of the palace. Perchance, he espied on a floating red leaf that to him looked unusual and fished it out of the water. On it was a poem,

流水何太急 Why do the waters floweth so hurriedly?
深宮盡日閑 Deep inside the palace where time is spent in idleness.
殷勤謝紅葉 With greatest reverence in thanking the red leaf,
好去到人間 Godspeed journeying to the world of the Great Without.

He surmised that some lonely court lady was lamenting about her life in the lonely palace. He fell in love with her through the poem and could not take her out of the mind. His friends laughed at his callowness. Still, he wrote a reply on another leaf and threw it into the upstream:

曾聞葉上題紅怨 Once I heard that upon a leaf was a girl lamenting her woes,
葉上題詩寄阿誰 But to whom was this poem sent?

Unlike other stories about scholars, our hero did not pass the imperial examinations and resigned himself to the harsh realities of the world. He stayed behind in the capital and became a private tutor to an official’s household. He worked diligently and gained the favor of his employer. One day, the employer told him that from someone from the palace having the same last name as his came to seek protection. She was a court lady to be “retired” at age of 30. He would like to matchmake the former scholar and her as husband and wife. Of course, he could not refuse such an offer from his master. Fortunately, for him, when he saw her, it was love at first sight. After many years of a blissful marriage, the wife, one day, went to the husband’s worktable to clear things up. In a box, she found the red leaf on which the poem was written. She immediately exclaimed that it was her poem! The husband was flabbergasted and she said she too had one red leaf poem and produced it to her husband, which of course is his poem. They told the lord of the household about this miraculous impossibility that came true for both of them. Two poems were then composed by the husband and wife for this joyous occasion,

獨步天溝岸 Alone I walked by the banks of the imperial moat
臨流得葉時 It was then by the current approached that this leaf now beholden,
此情誰會得 Who would know that this love could be had?
腸斷一聯詩 Brokenhearted just because of this poetic stanza.

一聯佳句題流水 One elegant stanza on flowing waters,
十載幽思滿素懷 Ten years of silent thoughts filled the heart with this life’s longing,
今日欲成鸞鳳友 Today that we are now a phoenix pair,
方知紅葉是良媒 Knoweth this moment the marvel of matchmaking this red leaf be.

Sunday, September 12, 2021
Monday, September 13, 2021