What We Can Learn From Orchids

Number 22 from The Journey by Marissa Bridge

What does an orchid teach us about life?  The painting above is from a series called The Journey by the artist Marissa Bridge.  The series follows the growth of an orchid over the course of budding, blossoming and senescence.   While orchids aesthetically appeal to us thanks to their delicate bilateral symmetry, this series of paintings explores another level of beauty in the orchid plant over the passage of time.  The sequence of images reveals a temporal balance as buds form, blossoms strive for their moment of perfection and then give way to fresh buds.  It’s remarkable work and I’ve learned a tremendous amount from watching the series of paintings take shape over the last few years, which I have had a chance to observe up close and first hand, since Marissa happens to be my wife.

Three paintings from the series will be on display for the first time at the Southampton Cultural Center’s 2014 juried art show.  We're very excited about going to the opening this coming Saturday, September 13^th where we plan to celebrate with friends.  You can also see more of the paintings from the series on Marissa’s web site here:  http://www.marissabridge.com 

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Number 21 from The Journey by Marissa Bridge

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Not only do orchids provide an inspiration for Marissa's current work - they also happen to be a recurring theme in Chinese poetry.  To help celebrate the first public display of Marissa’s new series, here is my translation of a poem from the Gan Yu cycle by Chen Z’iang, one of the lesser known masters of the early Tang period.   

The orchids birthed
Through spring
And summer both
Such luxuriant growth
How can leaf
Be so green

Hidden and alone
In the forest remote
The vermillion flowers
Hang from a purplish stem

Slowly absorbing
The light as the
Daytime fades
And with the first hint
Of autumn’s wind
The blossoms reach
Their fullest extent
Falling as the stem trembles

A sudden fragrance
Released that
No one expected

感遇 其二


兰若生春夏
芊蔚何青青
幽独空林色
朱蕤冒紫茎
迟迟白日晚
嫋嫋秋风生 

岁华尽摇落
芳意竟何成

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Translator’s note:

The Gan Yu is a truly remarkable collection of poems written by Chen Z'iang along his life's way during the late 7th century. These poems are almost completely unknown to Western readers. Chen Z'iang is from the early Tang period with a lifespan thought to have run from 656 or 661 to 702. According to our friend Steve Zhang, Chen is not even well known or widely read in China today, his work having fallen into obscurity due to the long shadows cast by the great Tang poets who followed. (We owe many thanks to Professor Jonathan Stalling for calling our attention to Chen's poems in his excellent collection of essays, The Poetics of Emptiness.)  There is much about these poems we find wonderful. They are steeped in Daoism and imbued with mystery but at the same time the poet's voice remains quite distinct and accessible.

You can read more of our translations of classic Chinese poetry by clicking here to subscribe to our free email newsletter - The Tang Spirit. 

A Cryptogram Primarily Addressed to Myself

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Today I tried and tried to get

The Mailchimp off my back

It seems no matter how many times

I recheck the standings

It’s still the same old

Dreary self

Ping again

It matters not

The least

Yet it’s also

A labyrinth

A circuitous route

In search of something else

That can’t be pinned to the wall

The entire Cycle of Changes perhaps

Or else the very best sort of

Popular entertainment

Full of special effects

A real Penny Dreadful in fact

But never underestimate

The full price being paid

Once you factor in the

High spiritual cost

Of both failure

And success

Something Guan Yin Hinted at Last Night

It is a kind of

Living death

Our attachment

To reality

So steadfast

We cast our lot

But the spirit

Knows otherwise

And strains to remind us

From time to time

Opening the window

Of the Oversoul

And letting in old

Familiar voices

From the streets

Below

Sidewalk Selfie

A selfie can be a poem as well as a photo.  To qualify in this new sub-genre the poem must be composed on the fly, as it were, spontaneously in the street, and whenever possible, accompanied by some sort of visual record of the event.

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Shoulder set back

As if tacking windward

Central Parking System

Be damned here I am

Yet again sailing

Down the block and

Blogging about how my

Central nervous system keeps

Firing with abandon

Wide open and alert

Gliding along as if under 

Kerouac's command or
In some other slipstream

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A Selfie Composed in the Barbershop Chair

Indelibly connected
To the visible world
Or else cast adrift
Forever deep into
Meditative space
I float along
In the barbershop chair
A razor close to my face

Up the Creek Without an iPad

Up the Creek tonight

Without an iPad or pen

Near to hand
All the better that I

May now commit

The sanctity of this evening

To long term storage

Closing my eyes

To see every passing ripple

And crease along the surface
Lodging deep as an icon

Within the innermost ear

Right where the cochlea

Abuts cognitive functioning

To be embedded forever

Like the refrain 

Of a popular song

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My friend Peter Rippon visited us earlier this summer and we had a chance to paddle on the Creek just before sunset.  And then later we walked out to the pier on Bay Avenue to watch the moon rise over Shinnecock Bay.  Here is one of Peter's drawings that seems well matched to this particular poem.  By the way, Peter often uses an iPad for sketching, which may also help you better understand the title of the poem.

Poem Written in a Lawn Chair (looking into a garden)

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Submissive to everything

Open and alert

This is how Kerouac

Set about composing life

Off and on the road

Debauched as

A bee in the pollen

Of a trumpet rose

With pen for proboscis

He scribbled everywhere

In his secret notebooks

In the midst of discovering

Life’s secret-most forms

And so too I have come

To a point in my 57^th year

Where I find my desktop

Littered about with folders

And files in a joyful mess

Overflowing all

Reasonable bounds

And I have hurried but lately

Strived to sketch the flow

Of spirits passing

Outside the doorway

In the streets below

And the shimmers of light

Discernable only to

The innermost I

As they have been cast 

Upon the eyelid’s wall

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This poem has a little back story which may worth mentioning. Yesterday my wife sent me an email which really sparked my interest.  It was a list of 30 writing tips put together by Jack Kerouac -- a few essential pointers for composing more compelling hipster prose.   And I found myself strongly agreeing with nearly everything Jack recommended, especially the first five items (set forth below) which in fact inspired me to write the preceding poem.

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form