Apricot House (after Wang Wei)
We cut the finest apricot for roof beams
and braided fragrant grasses over them.
I wonder if clouds might form there
and rain upon this world?
The transliteration on Chinese-poems.com reads:
Fine apricot cut for roofbeam
Fragrant cogongrass tie for eaves
Not know ridgepole in cloud
Go make people among rain
Apricot was a given. It offered specificity, and feels lovely in the mouth. Roof beams, as well. Cogongrass didn’t make the cut. It is indeed used for thatched roofs in southeast Asia, but it felt clumsy; in this case, the specificity it lent detracted from my reading. And rather than use “thatched” I chose “braided” to imply the layered effect of thatching, and to imply movement, to mesh with and support the idea of clouds forming and drifting under the roof. “Not know” posed a question: did it mean ignorance or simply being unaware, or perhaps a state of wonderment? I first employed “unaware” but thought it took the poem in a different direction than Wang Wei intended (but who knows?). “Ridgepole” seemed unnecessary. So I chose to let the reader follow the unsaid – using “form there” to reinforce the impression already shaped by the roof beams and the grasses “over them.” I admit to some trepidation over the second couplet. It may still need work.
“Apricot House” first appeared here in December 2014.
O at the Edges 
I enjoyed the process, Bob.
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Thanks, Ken. I’ve found it’s easier to discuss process when working with adaptations like this. I often have no idea why I choose specific words for my own poems. Ha!
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I loved reading about how you translated the poem. And I like your translation!
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Thanks, Barbara. It’s fun to do these. I should take them up again.
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Good solution I think (particularly with “cogongrass” — even though I too share that feeling sometimes that I only got close after best effort.
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Thanks, Frank. I generally prefer specificity, but in this case, it felt like overkill. And it didn’t sound pleasing to me, when I read it aloud.
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