| Author | Message | ||
| M
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 3526 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention A River Transformed XIV: After Wang Wei’s Lacquer Tree Garden (19) Gary Blankenship Before a Teacher, a Student I’ve harvested bitter weeds and broken rush, my knives sharpened with ancient stones. I’ve fed cats, studied the lyrics of crows, and searched a gated corral for lost oxen. I hold my left hand in front of me, it does not clap. My ears ring from sound of broken pottery, my eyes dim deciphering the difference between blue and green, forest and tree - The question unanswered, the hills empty. I pruned an apple tree to its trunk, it’s new fruit wormy. Follow a bent old man through tall grass; and trousers soaked, gather barbs. I do not have a literal translation of this poem. Instead I offer Marsha Wagner’s translation: That man of antiquity was not an arrogant clerk: He just lacked the sense of duty to govern the world. By chance he was lodged in a minor office, Withering away, several branches of a tree. Note: The poem is about a Tao philosopher, Chuang-tzu (ca 360), who defined and may have solely invented Taoism. He is known for the story: Chuang-Tzu once dreamed he was a butterfly. When he awoke, he no longer knew if he was a butterfly dreaming he was a man, or a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly. In the state of Meng, he was keeper of the Lacquer Tree Garden. |
