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this never gets old to me
Apr. 30th, 2009 11:41 amOH AGATHA. I heart you so.
Apr. 30th, 2009
Two more by Su Tung P'o, to finish off the month, translation by Kenneth Rexroth. Both poems are about spring, because it's still spring in New England, and as you know, that's one of my favorite things in the world.
What keeps catching me on this one is last sentence: The mountaineers / Of the West know how to be / Happy, full of melon soup / And fried bamboo shoots after / The spring sowing. Oh yes. Sometimes, you have to just sit and be happy in spring, when you've done your work well and you've had a good meal. You need to be able to do that.
On the Siu Cheng Road
A gentle East wind is blowing.
I travel through the mountains.
White clouds rest on the peaks like
Caps of silk floss. Over
The tree tops the sun gleams like
A polished cymbal. Peach trees
Bloom beyond bamboo fences.
Along the streams, willows wave
Above the pools. The mountaineers
Of the West know how to be
Happy, full of melon soup
And fried bamboo shoots after
The spring sowing.
Like the others from this volume, this poem is almost a thousand years old (Su Tung P'o lived from 1036-1101), but when I read it, I thought the crowds of families, the buskers, the frisbee-players and kite-flyers, the ice cream truck vendors all out on the Boston Common last week when the temperature hit ninety on a blue-skied, sunny Saturday afternoon.
A Walk in the Country
The spring wind raises fine dust from the road.
Everybody is out, enjoying the new leaves.
Strollers are drinking in the inns along the way.
Cart wheels roll over the young grass.
The whole town has gone to the suburbs.
Children scamper everywhere and shout to the skies.
Song and drum beats scare the hills
And make the leaves tremble on the trees.
Picnic baskets and jugs litter the fields
And put the crows and kites to flight.
Who is that fellow who has gathered a crowd?
He says he is a Taoist monk.
He is selling charms to the passerby.
He shouts, waves his hands, rolls his eyes.
"If you raise silk, these will
Grow cocoons as big at pitchers.
If you raise stock, these will
Make the sheep big as elks."
Nobody really believes him.
It is the spirit of spring in him they are buying.
As soon as he has enough money
He will go full himself with wine
And fall down drunk,
Overcome by the magic of his own charms.
See you again next year!
What keeps catching me on this one is last sentence: The mountaineers / Of the West know how to be / Happy, full of melon soup / And fried bamboo shoots after / The spring sowing. Oh yes. Sometimes, you have to just sit and be happy in spring, when you've done your work well and you've had a good meal. You need to be able to do that.
On the Siu Cheng Road
A gentle East wind is blowing.
I travel through the mountains.
White clouds rest on the peaks like
Caps of silk floss. Over
The tree tops the sun gleams like
A polished cymbal. Peach trees
Bloom beyond bamboo fences.
Along the streams, willows wave
Above the pools. The mountaineers
Of the West know how to be
Happy, full of melon soup
And fried bamboo shoots after
The spring sowing.
Like the others from this volume, this poem is almost a thousand years old (Su Tung P'o lived from 1036-1101), but when I read it, I thought the crowds of families, the buskers, the frisbee-players and kite-flyers, the ice cream truck vendors all out on the Boston Common last week when the temperature hit ninety on a blue-skied, sunny Saturday afternoon.
A Walk in the Country
The spring wind raises fine dust from the road.
Everybody is out, enjoying the new leaves.
Strollers are drinking in the inns along the way.
Cart wheels roll over the young grass.
The whole town has gone to the suburbs.
Children scamper everywhere and shout to the skies.
Song and drum beats scare the hills
And make the leaves tremble on the trees.
Picnic baskets and jugs litter the fields
And put the crows and kites to flight.
Who is that fellow who has gathered a crowd?
He says he is a Taoist monk.
He is selling charms to the passerby.
He shouts, waves his hands, rolls his eyes.
"If you raise silk, these will
Grow cocoons as big at pitchers.
If you raise stock, these will
Make the sheep big as elks."
Nobody really believes him.
It is the spirit of spring in him they are buying.
As soon as he has enough money
He will go full himself with wine
And fall down drunk,
Overcome by the magic of his own charms.
See you again next year!