Questions? Comments? -K. E. Dennis
Poetry Worldwide (all else....)
[schnips]
First day of my summer holidays with nothing planned, we were having a bit of a lie-in and I suddenly said to my wife "What about a pond now that the kids are grown up?".
[...& schnips]
I'm really glad I did it - very proud of my handiwork, actually :) - we have about two dozen fish in it, goldfish, shabunkins, comets and golden orfes (no koi 'cos you need a much bigger pond) - and it's magic on a nice evening sitting watching the fish and listening to the waterfall.
Right, I can't help it, the poet may not have been Irish, but this post has made the poem impossible to shake....
During Han Yü's lifetime, at the other end of Eurasia, writers were busy publishing the Lex Patricii, Lex Columbae [sic] Cille, compiling the Book of Armagh,* and writing and/or compiling whole heaps of nature poetry themselves, while trying to stay out of the way of a bunch of heathens [aka Vikings] who exhibited few signs at this time of appreciating the contemplative joys of gardens or ponds.
[*see: Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí. Early Medieval Ireland, c. AD 400 - AD 1200. Longman Group Ltd, 1995]
|
The Pond in a Bowl, Five Poems Han Yü (AD 768-824) |
Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry edited by Wu-Chi Lui & Irving Yucheng Lo Garden City: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1975 |
|
translation by Kenneth O. Hanson |
A bowl in the ground
just add water –
it’s a pool!
Throughout the night
frogs croaked
till it dawned,
as they did
when I fished
as a child at Feng K’ou.
[2]
Who says
you can’t make a pond
out of a bowl?
The lotus spring
I planted not long ago
has already grown full size.
Don’t forget,
if it rains
stop in for a visit.
Together we’ll
listen to raindrops splash
on all the green leaves.
[3]
Come morning,
the water brightens
as if by magic.
One moment alive
with thousands of bugs
too small to have names,
Next moment
they’re gone,
leaving no trace,
Only the small fish
this way and that
swim in formations.
[4]
Does the bowl
in the garden
mock nature
when night after night
green frogs gather
to prove it’s a pool?
If you choose to come
and keep me company
need you fill
the dark with noise
and endless squabble
like husband and wife?
[5]
Say the bright pond
mirrors the sky
both blue.
If I pour
water, the pond
brims.
Let night
deepen
the moon go
how many stars
shine back
from the water!