Monday, May 31, 2010

Tuesday Poem, "Parting from the Winter Stove

"Parting from the Winter Stove
               (A.D. 822)

On the fifth day after the rise of Spring,
Everywhere the season's gracious attitudes!
The white sun gradually lengthening its course,
The blue-grey clouds hanging as though they would fall:
The last icicle breaking into splinters of jade:
The new stems marshalling red sprouts.
The things I meet are all full of gladness;
It is not only I who love the Spring.
To welcome the flowers I stand in the back garden;
To enjoy the sunlight I sit under the front eaves.
Yet still in my heart there lingers one regret;
Soon I shall part with the flame of my red stove!


By Po Chu-I, 772, Born on the 20th of first month to 846, Dies in the eighth month. 
Another from "Chinese Poems" translated by Arthur Waley, a very old paperback that's lost it's spine, the pages wanting to scatter.

2 comments:

  1. Talk about graceful! A beautiful looking-back, more nuanced than a mere ode.

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  2. Haunting...
    And such a brilliant translation :)

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