By the Crooked River (by Du Fu)

The fall of one blossom

Diminishes spring

How much more sorrowful

This wind that

Strips the bough clean

And how I long  

For a blossom

More enduring 

To be inured to this pain

The wine stains my lips

By the river I see

The blue winged kingfisher

Perched in its nest

While above the burial mound

The stone Unicorn crouches

It takes only a delicate push

For us creatures

To know pleasure

What’s the use worrying

About good name

Given our stumbling ways

曲江

一片花飞减却春

风飘万点正愁人

且看欲尽花经眼

莫厌伤多酒入唇

江上小堂巢翡翠

花边高冢卧麒麟

细推物理须行乐

何用浮名绊此身

A Passing Cloud (or envisioning my dissolution while en route to the dump)

En route to the dump this morning

I noticed a cumulus cloud

Close to the horizon

Unlike camel weasel or whale

It looked like the very replica

Of my cerebellum

Grey matter born aloft

By an onshore breeze

There it was adrift

Tufted by the wind

Frontal lobe and all

And slowly I watched it

Disperse to the four corners

As the engine of perception

Enjoyed a brief moment

Of self recognition

Part and parcel

Of its own undoing

*  *  *  *  *

A short explanatory note:  Am I depressed today?  Not really.  But somehow I do feel more connected to a deeper layer of reality - a layer on which self has been dispossessed of some of its ordinary creature comforts.  I can more clearly imagine my own undoing.  The usual self-delusions have been set aside and instead I'm feeling more detached. Perhaps this sort of detachment ends up being labeled as depression and thus it happens that spirituality of one sort or another may actually end up being diagnosed as a mental illness. 

A Bird Returns Home (parts 1- 4)

I've just published a new issue of the Tang Spirit Newsletter.  I hope those of you not already subscribed will sign up for it by clicking here.

This new issue features my translation of the complete poem A Bird Returns Home by T'ao Yuan-ming, the first part of which I had previously published on the blog.  So now I'd like to share with you all four verses of T'ao's wonderful lyric about homecoming.  I've been thinking about this poem a lot recently as a result of my own recent return home after an extended absence.  And I've also been pondering the rhetorical question T'ao poses at the end of this poem -- why does a bird sing if it's already immersed in peaceful contentment?  I'll share with you my response to that question after you read through the poem ...

Song 1

Fluttering its wing

A bird returns home  

After flying off at dawn

Into the woods

Far away it pursued

Eight different routes

Resting near a cloudy peak

Until the breeze made

It uneasy and it flapped

Its wings again

Elsewhere seeking

Its heart’s content

Attending to the cry

Of other birds nearby

It then withdrew

To the shelter

Of a shady spot

Song 2  

Fluttering its wing

A bird returns home

How high it had soared

How far it had flown

Although not naturally

Inclined to wandering

Seeing the forest

It felt fettered

Encountering clouds

It climbed and descended

Until the cry of other birds

Made it return home

Abandoning the road

In preference for leisure and

The pursuit of more

Instinctive pleasures 

Without interruption  

Song Three

Fluttering its wing

A bird returns home

In the midst of a flock

Darting through the forest

Unsure which route

It should choose

Yet joyful upon reaching

Its native roost

Even without its

Former companions

Its voice resounds

Each note in harmony

Day and night

The air so pure

Leisure suffusing

Every breath

Song Four

Fluttering its wing

A bird returns home

With feathers ruffled

Shivering on a bare branch

Far it wandered but never

Abandoning the forest

Sheltering in the treetops

Arising at daybreak

In a freshening wind

With habitual song it

Marks the sun’s passage

Why does it sing if

It’s already immersed in

Peaceful contentment  

 *  *  *  *  * 

At the risk of taking some of the magic out of this poem, I want to hazard this answer to the closing question.  Songs of contentment are much like songs of freedom.  They come to us all of a sudden.  And they need no justification.  We are drawn into the song whether or not we have auditors simply because the expression of what we are feeling becomes part and parcel of the sensation itself. And that's why these songs, coming unbidden and unexpectedly, sound sweetest of all.  

A Short Word from the Publisher

Something went retrograde

But none of my own

Whatever seeming misfortune

Meditation remains the same

And so does the gateless gate
With Nothing to be ventured

And Nothing to be gained

*  *  *  *  *

All in all today has been a bit of a disappointment.  I formally announced the publication of my new book - The Adventures of Monkey King.  Total first day sales - 3 copies.  Our sales goal for the first edition printing is 200 so we are just 1.5% of the way there with 5 weeks to go in our Indiegogo campaign.  (As a poet and publisher I believe in providing readers with complete transparency, including our flash sales reports.)  Unless we see an uptick in interest and activity soon we are going to have to consider various contingencies, including letting go of the entire marketing department.

But really, the worst that can happen has nothing to do with this book.  I feel grateful having come this far.  And there's no turning back, that's for sure, although the impediments are many, as Monkey himself would concede, but there's not one that's truly insurmountable.

Click here to visit our Indiegogo campaign

Ode to a Nova Scotia Meadow

Over and over

My mind reverts to

The Nova Scotia meadow

The open repository for

Summer’s fading glory

Where swaths of goldenrod rise

Amidst clusters of hay

And the birch saplings

Shiver interspersed

Gracefully swaying

The stalks bow in prayer

As the breeze coming

From far offshore

Plays an Aeolian air

Inviting to the kestrel’s eye

As it swoops down

For a closer look

Here the prime meridian

Remains fluid yet

Unrehearsed

Stop and listen

To the meadow

Teeming with life

Of cicadas and crickets

And a thousand other winged critters

Unleashed upon the brambles

Of the blackberry bush

Pulsing but unseen

As every sere thistle and vine

Strains for the remnants

Of the late August sun

What Humans Do

This poem was written on the back porch of our friend's house in Port Lorne, Nova Scotia.  I wrote while Marissa sat nearby with a water color pad as the afternoon shadows stretched out across the meadow. In part this poem is in response to the David Byrne song of a similar name.  It is also more simply an expression of the wonderful sense of freedom that arises while sitting in a high meadow in late August sunlight on the south west coast of Nova Scotia.  

What we humans do

Is clear a wood lot

And then watch as

It slowly grows back

To a less kempt state

That’s where we’re situated

Right now somewhere

In between the forest

And the meadow

With an apple tree

Sitting in the middle

Of the backyard

Susan says the coyotes

Around here are nearly

Eighty percent wolf

And the neighbor’s dogs

Tied up in the shade

Aren’t too happy about it either

As we can tell from their
Long mournful barking

Photo by Marissa Bridge

If you're interested you can read a few other poems composed in or around the same spot here and here.