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

A Drawing of Pine and Bamboo (by Tang Yin)

 Drawing of Pine and Bamboo

 

Tang Yin

 

A brief banquet seated

With birdsong for musical score

I could inscribe my whole life

This way from my heart’s core

 

Yes, my whole life  

Could surely pass this way

With pine and bamboo together

In simple harmony

松竹图

唐寅

 

促席坐鸣琴

写我平生心

 

平生固如此

松竹谐素音

I wonder if this a poem about making or looking at a piece of art.  Remember that Tang Yin was both a poet and a painter and as a result many of his poems were inscribed in his own hand directly alongside one of his paintings. In either case, I wish I could find the image that inspired this poem, but all I could find with my online searching was this drawing of pine and bamboo made at a much later date, I believe, but nonetheless showing pine and bamboo in harmony.

 

A Picture Too Real (by Tang Yin)

Translating a classical Chinese poem sometimes calls for guesswork, in order to fill in the gaps in my understanding.  These poems are so rich in cultural reference, it's hard for anyone not raised in the tradition to pick up even half the allusions.  Not only that but much classical Chinese poetry is written in a terse or compact style, which makes it inherently subject to more than a single interpretation. At a certain point, you have to be willing to make your own intuitive leap in order to come up with a good reading of the poem.

Even after you make an intuitive leap, though, not everything always neatly lines up with your reading.  It's a bit like trying to hold a cat in a bag, the way the meaning of the text will keep shifting about and can't be firmly grasped.  

The last line of this poem by Tang Yin is a good example of what I mean.  I think I understand this poem but then there's the last line, which makes me wonder about my tenuous perch.

A Picture Too Real

Tang Yin

From ancient times

Flowers have spoken

Of immortal beauty

 

Self too partakes

Of such beauty

No matter how

Ill-fated one’s luck

 

The lilting tune

Of Rainbows and Feathers

Continues – an unending dance

 

With a long winding train  

Of golden brocade

The horse is perched

On a rocky slope

太真图

唐寅

 

古来花貌说仙娥

自是仙娥薄命多

一曲霓裳未终舞

金钿甲委马嵬坡

      

   

In a Thatched Hut Dreaming of an Immortal

 Here's another painting and poem from the Ming artist Tang Yin.  First the poem.

In a Thatched Hut
Dreaming of an Immortal
 
In repose head resting
Atop a book fast asleep
I dreamed I fell into a large pot
Where the sky stretched above
As if from the void there came
A strange but familiar spirit
 To impart the secret truth  
 Directly in the flesh

梦仙草堂图
 
唐寅
 
闲来隐几枕书眠
梦入壶中别有天
仿佛希夷亲面目
大还真诀得亲传
 

And here is the painting or more precisely a close up of the middle section of a longer scroll.  In this middle section you can see the dreamer in the thatched hut to the right and a Daoist Immortal approaching out of the void.

Here's the full scroll.

This scroll painted by Tang Yin in the early 1500s for his friend Wang Dongyuan somehow ended up in the collection of the Smithsonian.  It depicts Wang's dream of being approached by an Immortal while he slept in a thatched hut in his garden. 

Aspirations (by Tang Yin)

Here's a short poem by the Ming artist Tang Yin that captures the artist's aspiration to find a way to live free of the work-a-day world's entanglements.   Most likely written in the early years of the 1500s, it might just as easily come off the pen of a beat or millennial slacker poet. 

Aspirations

Tang Yin

No alchemy

No meditation

No commerce

No work in the fields

 

Just writing at leisure

To the green hills give all

Free of human toil

By money unsoiled

          

言志

 

唐寅

 

不炼金丹不坐禅

不为商贾不耕田

闲来写就青山卖

不使人间造孽钱

In addition to writing poetry, Tang Yin was a painter - in fact that's primarily what he was known for.  He was one of the most highly regarded landscape painters of the Ming Dynasty.  Here's one of his paintings which I think should give you a good idea of how he aspired to give the green hills his all.

Although there are no green hills in this wintry landscape, it is a moment closely observed, as a flock of corvids land in a barren treetop.  I’m not sure this is right … but I see this painting as a self-portrait, of sorts, with the poet/painter being the person shown walking beside the stream.  This is the artist strolling downstream, feeling deeply at ease in nature; he looks up into the tree tops and is suddenly possessed by the idea for a new painting.  It’s the moment of inspiration.  In other words, this is a painting of the moment when the idea for the painting first took form.