For Marissa (on our anniversary)

 I loved you before we met

I will love you after I die

If life is but a sleep and forgetting

You are the dream come alive

Married

Twenty five years

To the day 

Still I can’t imagine

Any other way

I’d rather be living

Than here by your side

Dreaming of Li Bai (by Du FU)

 

All day long

Rows of clouds

Drift across the horizon

Wanderers who will never return

 

But for three nights now

You have appeared

In a dream so vivid

I could touch your flesh

 

Briefly you spoke

About your long hard journey

Crossing rivers and lakes

In a small fragile boat

Fearfully tossed

By wind and waves

 

While the capital teems

With the rich and powerful

And their lavish gear

There you stood in the doorway

Scratching your silvery head

A sign of life’s burdens

A lone and haggard man

 

No my friend

There’s not a single cloud

In the vast heavens

That could withstand

The rigors borne by

Your weary old frame

 

Surely you’ll enjoy

A thousand years

Or ten thousand years

Of the greatest fame

But still for now you’re destined

For a lonely and distant grave

 

 

 

夢李白 (之二)

 

浮雲終日行

 遊子久不至

 三夜頻夢君

 情親見君意

 告歸常局促

 苦道來不易

 江湖多風波

 舟楫恐失墜

 出門搔白首

 若負平生志

 冠蓋滿京華

 斯人獨憔悴

 孰云網恢恢

 將老身反累

 千秋萬歲名

 寂寞身後事

 

But for Tomorrow (by Bei Dao)

The days drift by four ways

An investigation by happenstance

My heart calm as water

That has leached deeply

Into tomorrow's riverflow

Leaving me, exposed

I climbed the foggy peak

And gazed at the moonlight

Suspicious of its many layers

Surely the road exists

The horse's hooves strike loudly

Like a stanza of eternal verse

                                                            

I haven't read or translated much contemporary Chinese poetry but I think this poem by Bei Dao is exquisite and very much in the Tang spirit, a fine example of poetry made through the process of the distillation of experience, that is to say, first evaporation of something that happened followed by condensation in verse.

And today being my birthday, I had the opportunity to write my own poem in reply to Bei Dao.

time speaks to the best part of me

time speaks 

to the best part of me

come along for the ride

trying to put new meaning 

in an old metaphor is like 

pursuing carbon capture 

after the fuel’s been burned  

I mean it can be done 

But at what expense 

Is it even worth the effort of a poem

Not a Simulation

 Life may not be a simulation but whoever wrote the code came up with some very elegant solutions for advancing game play:

1.  Go out in springtime and throw a handful of seeds on the expectant earth; then sit back to watch the show or else you can play along on your own with a spade and hoe;

2. Later on you gather up food scraps in a stand-alone pile and watch the rules run in reverse.

Play once through and you’re hooked; it ought to be illegal it's so highly addictive.

*****

I wrote this #haibun this morning at the community compost pile after emptying a few bins of scraps from the New Moon restaurant, which means another few weeks of full employment for the maggots and worms here in town. This compost is no simulation either.

A Spring Like None Other

There's no spring other

Than the present one

Rushing back to life

There's no time for regrets

About things left undone

There are only seeds to be sown

And always more shoveling

 

And to make the most 

Of these daylight hours

We too must extend ourselves

A little further every day 

That's what a growing      

Season is all about

A season profuse in 

Blossoms and meaning 

When spring synesthesia

Everywhere abounds

Where daffodils flower  

For three weeks straight

While the magnolia still 

Remains in full glory 

And just now the cherry tree

Has let loose a fusillade

Of white and pink

 

There can be no spring

Other than the present one

The Mudra

 

The nervous system

Is xylem and phloem

For you and me as

Our vitality rises and

Falls like sap in a tree

And like an old rain barrel

A mudra is poised to capture

The downpour of light

As it falls from the sky

To be held within

However briefly until

It's released again to

Replenish the earth

Sixty Six (by Bai Juyi)

Through sickness

And recovery

Strength has diminished

With age you feel 

Time’s quickening

58 only yesterday

Today I’m 66

White hair

Adorns my temples

Like fine silk

The grass by

The pond grows

Far more thick and lush

The children have

All grown up

The garden now half

Filled with 

   Thick tree trunks

See how large rocks

Slide down the mountain

And the stream

Penetrates into

The bamboo grove’s depth

 Even when there’s 

But a slow trickle

It sounds

Like a mad rush

Though as long as 

I’ve been listening

I have not yet

Heard enough

六十六

白居易

病知心力减

老觉光阴速

五十八归来

今年六十六

鬓丝千万白

池草八九绿

童稚尽成人

园林半乔木

看山倚高石

引水穿深竹

虽有潺湲声

至今听未足