March 5th, 2009 at 11:25 am
A Poem in Honor of Spring
I don’t know about you, but we are getting tired of winter’s bitter cold and snow assaulting us here in New York City.
To encourage warmer weather we offer below a poem from the anthology Beyond Spring: Tz’u poems of the Sung Dynasty, translated by Julie Landau.
P’o chen tzu
The day the swallows come, spring begins
After the pear blossoms fall, it’s Ch’ing-ming*
On the pond a few specks of green
Under the leaves, the yellow oriole tries a note or two
All day long the catkins fly
The girl from next door comes giggling
We meet picking mulberry leaves along the path
No wonder I had such a good spring dream last night –
Today my fighting grass beats hers
Smiles grow on both cheeks
By Yen Shu (991-1055)
*Ch’ing ming is a festival devoted to sweeping the graves of the ancestors and going into the country to enjoy nature.
Take a look at other titles also in the Translations from the Asian Classics series here.