On the Lake II

Wang Wei is one of the major poets of the Tang dynasty (618-907), the period of greatest poetic flowering in China.  I thought of this poem when I read Stanley Kunitz's The Long Boat (see below), and I wondered if Stanley Kunitz was "seeing" Wang Wei's poem alongside his own while he worked.

Lake Yi

Blowing flutes cross to the distant shore.

At day's dusk I bid farewell to you.

On the lake with one turn of the head:

Mountain green rolls into white clouds.

This poem is translated by Pauline Yu, from a terrific book she wrote (1980), The Poetry of Wang Wei. 

On the Lake

"In the Slop of His Cradle"

Elise Archer made this beautiful painting, which I reproduced from the cover of The Collected Poems, by Stanley Kunitz, her husband.  The painting's title is also the 17th line of a poem by Stanley Kunitz.  Here is the poem:

THE LONG BOAT

When his boat snapped loose

from its mooring, under

the screaking of the gulls,

he tried at first to wave

to his dear ones on shore,

but in the rolling fog

they had already lost their faces.

Too tired even to choose

between jumping and calling,

somehow he felt absolved and free

of his burdens, those mottoes

stamped on his name-tag:

conscience, ambition, and all

that caring.

He was content to lie down

with the family ghosts

in the slop of his cradle,

buffeted by the storm,

endlessly drifting.

Peace!  Peace!

To be rocked by the Infinite!

As if it didn't matter

which way was home;

as if he didn't know

he loved the earth so much

he wanted to stay forever.

flowers moving on a page

Martin's and Ardean's paintings

Watercolor can be like a splash of color-and-light.  Not often, students can newly try it out with seemingly carefree brushstrokes and arrangement.  Martin and Ardean have done so.  Their colors waft in space, as do flowers in a field, don't they!

A wonderful book, The Wild Braid, has in its last poem, "The Round,"  these final lines:

the still-wet words I scribbled

on the blotted page:

"Light splashed . . ."

I can scarcely wait til tomorrow

when a new life begins for me,

as it does each day;

as it does each day.

(The first line of the poem is  Light splashed this morning  .)

Do find the book, find the poem; these lines are only slight enticement for much, in this poem and in the other poems to enjoy!  The book is a collection of poems and reflections about poetry and gardening by Stanley Kunitz, a small, lovely book made at the end of his very long life.

The students who painted flowers in watercolor class with me are not very old; still, they are living in retirement:  and from the long view they have reached because of age, gosh, they were able to see the splashes and so "scribble" and "blot" toward some small, lovely work.  Ageless sparkles.