Memories On The Blue River
(Mei Yao Ch’en, 1002-1060)
A halo surrounds the moon - there will be wind
the boatmen say, as they talk into the night.
At dawn, brisk winds fill our sail -
we push from the bank, and scud the white waves.
But why am I here in the land of Wu -
my dreams and longings are back in Cho’u.
I dreamt one day she would come with me
on a trip like this . . . and now she is only dust.
-
Author:
Will Hiltz (
Offline) - Published: March 19th, 2017 23:57
- Comment from author about the poem: This is not my poem originally, merely my old version/cover/rendition/re-write/slight-tweak of a poem originally written long ago by Mei Yao Chen, and then translated around 1970 by Kenneth Rexroth from the Chinese into, unfortunately, a poetic style of English that I found to be a bit stiff and awkward. I offer it here not to show off my own abilities at such things, but so that others might come to learn more about the beauty of this whole realm of poetry, so little known to English speakers. I want to say thanks, all, for your kind words about my poems. This will likely be my last poem here, for two reasons. First, most of the poems I have offered were written long ago, and I only write when inspired, and I am not inspired to write very often, and even then I often spend years revising to get them right before I let others read them. Secondly, the site seems to want to blur into a social media site or worse to a large extent, and I am not into that. The poem I posted briefly last night, BTW, for any who saw it before I deleted it, was taken down solely at my own initiative: I use my own name here, and the person in the poem might not be hard to identify by someone who knew us both back then, and although the odds of such a someone reading it here are small, they are not infinitesimal, and I think the person in the poem would be highly embarrassed for others to read such a poem and know it was about her. Enough said. A Dios.
- Category: Unclassified
- Views: 13
Offline)
To be able to comment and rate this poem, you must be registered. Register here or if you are already registered, login here.