Thinking of Li Po at Sky’s End (after Tu Fu)
Cold wind rises at the sky’s end.
What does he consider?
And when will the geese arrive?
The rivers and lakes are full this autumn
but poets’ fates are seldom pleasant.
Demons love to see us fail.
Let’s think of dead Ch’u Yuan
and offer poems to the river.
The transliteration on Chinesepoems.com reads:
Thinking of Li Po at the End of the Sky
Cold wind rise sky end
Gentleman thought resemble what?
Goose what time come?
River lake autumn water much
Literature hate fate eminent
Demons happy people failure
Respond together wronged person language
Throw poems give Miluo
According to the notes at Chinesepoems.com, the wild goose is a symbol of autumn, letters and travellers in difficulties. The wronged person is Qu Yuan, a poet of the fourth century BC who drowned himself in the Miluo river – another exiled poet later threw some verses into the river as an offering to him.
stellar. ah, here i go again…geese. back when i was still working while driving home in the late fall or early winter there were usually several flying vees of geese in the late afternoon sky. they were heading for a nearby lake for the evening. as winter progressed and the sky got progressively darker in the afternoon they would still be coming. i hope they found their way in the dark.
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We don’t live in their flight path. Wish we did. I’d love to see them, listen to them.
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Wonderful!
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Thank you, Victoria.
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Reblogged this on Perth Words… exploring possibilities. and commented:
Inspired words…
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Thank you for reblogging, Frances
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Very cool, Robert. Just what I needed to read tonight, too.
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Thanks, Jeff. I took the day off from writing yesterday, and didn’t offer any poems to the river. But poetry found me in the town of Llano…
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Excellent, Robert! Just excellent. Reminds me of my softball days many years ago and an incident I had almost forgotten. I think the haiku I posted tonight will now interpret itself:
sliding into second
on my back, I call time out —
a straggling goose!
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Love the image, Ron!
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Oh! I see from a comment to Jeff that you were in Llano yesterday, a sleepy little town just a few miles from Marble Falls where some of the best days of my life were spent! Marble Falls is much larger and busier but how about Llano? Somehow we didn’t even see Llano on our trip to MF a couple of years ago.
Again, though your poem grabbed my heart and mind and squeezed away the years.
Ron
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Llano seems much more vibrant than it did 15 years ago, but I wouldn’t call it booming. I’m sure it’s grown, but not in a bad way. I may write about my little jaunt. I returned home with 31 books…
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Beautiful words and great picture. What talent you have.
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Thank you, but Tu Fu is responsible for the poem, and the photos come from morguefile.com.
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Rivers and lakes are full of dead poems. That’s why geese are so vociferous. Great translitaration, again.
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I’ve certainly killed my share of them.
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Reblogged this on Musings from a deranged mind…(?).
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Thanks for reblogging!
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You’re welcome, my friend :)!
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Don’t mention it, all is cool, many thanks again :)!
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The appositions of your translations and the literal Chinese so enrich my appreciation of both.
You may well already be aware of the work of poet Wendy Call (http://www.wendycall.com/) who’s writing I recently came across in Orion magazine. She translates Spanish poetry and has a special interest in the poetry of endangered languages.
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Thanks very much. I did not know Wendy Call’s work, but have boomarked her site.
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I’ve always found geese, with their intense family drama and territorial desputes highly entertaining.
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I’ve not spent time with geese, but find birds fascinating.
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Lovely, thank you for all the support Robert. It means a lot. I don’t have nearly enough time to read all the wonderful posts but I love to catch up when I get a chance. Glad I caught this one 😀
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I’m glad you caught this one, too. Thanks very much.
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Lovely, you write beautiful poetry.
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Thank you, Jean.
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Thank you for sharing. It’s a lovely post. 🙂
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I’m pleased you like it. Thank you.
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Sad, but beautiful.
Robert, I’ve nominated you for a blog award. Please visit my post for the guidelines: http://nadinetomlinson.com/2015/01/29/one-month-two-blog-awards/
Continue to have a great day!
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Thanks very much, Nadine, but I’ve elected to not accept blog awards. I truly do appreciate the sentiment!
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No worries. I understand. Thanks for letting me know. 🙂
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thanks for that!
all the best,
another exiled poet.
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You’re very welcome. We’re all exiles of some sort, aren’t we?
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yes
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Ah, but the poet enjoys eternal life through their art. The thought lives forever, even when forgotten. The tree does make a sound. I look forward to reading more.
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Thank you, James. Yes, the tree does sing!
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Thank you so much! I often find English translations of Asian poetry incomprehensible both because of my lack of knowledge of the cultural references and the attempt to provide a literal rather than a figurative translation. This work is beautiful and meaningful to this ignorant gaijin just as it is. The added text explanation is gravy! Thanks again!
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These have been interesting and challenging to produce. I, too, lack a firm base in the cultural references, and wonder whether I’ve been too literal here, or too liberal there. But I read, and I try.
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“I read, and I try” just about sums it up for me, too 🙂
I attach the original text for your reference:
天末懷李白
杜甫
涼風起天末,君子意如何。
鴻雁幾時到,江湖秋水多。
文章憎命達,魑魅喜人過。
應共冤魂語,投詩贈汨羅。
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Thank you, Mary!
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Echoes of this in “Forever Autumn” Justin Hayward. May I reblog to “Tales of Unwise Paths”?
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Yes, certainly. Please feel free to reblog. I never would have connected Justin Hayward to this poem, but I like it!
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Many thanks. 🙂
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Reblogged this on Tales of Unwise Paths.
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