20 december 2021

20 december 2021

John Bjarne Grover

Here are the 8 poems by the chinese poet Su Shi on this web page under this web page - translated by me in this way for reasons of their relevance for the stone I found. Two of these I published on 14 december 2021. It seems that all these poems are concerned with the peculiar stone I found that lacked one half on the underside, but had an appr. 1 mm smooth and quasi polished white sole instead, and it had broken in two parts of unequal size. When putting them together, as for a perfect 'symbolon', they invoked the idea of a nose. My guess is that this 'cycle' of 8 poems can be seen to concern just this stone and be about 'the mending of a broken heart' - that would be in the last of them. Some of the poems are hard to understand - as can be just a part of the condition.

See this translation of mine of Ouyang Xiu, another Song poet. One could think of the idea that the Song dynasty was the 'stone age' of chinese poetry.

Poem #1:

Left on the owner's ground, an old man's spell
with white sole, broken, crystalline:
Small man delays vermilion joy to tell
a smile of tranquil wisdom in red wine.

Poem #2:

In its high end, the stone broke, crystalline.
Pavillion climbed a plant so facial
and held a class of sweet dreams in its mind.
Now strikes it lightly 5 - the morning bell.

Poem #3:

Black ink won't cover all the wooded hillside,
white rain makes eyes mix gangways to the boat
and reel the sheaves' indifference to distinguish
the water mirror storey's falling goat.

Poem #4:

At the well's bottom an invisible light shines on the real world:
Strong whistling winds, cold rain, wet withered roots around...
How can a human being change it all in a white stone?
It is not right in blooming days to let loneliness come.

Poem #5: Mid autumn moon/month

Even numbers at the full peripheral ride -
silent silver stars turn pure, revolve.
This conception's darkness loves not long.
Bright year, bright month - why stay to resolve?

OR:

Even numbers at the full peripheral ride -
silent silver stars turn pure, revolve.
This conception's darkness loves not long
but never that she had been out with an image that should reside.

Poem #6:

10 years of life, 2 boundless deaths -
don't contemplate (the) nose's neglect.
A 1000 streets: Low mound's no place to hasten wife's sincerity.
Let mutuals meet the answer: "I dont know".
The full stone mirrors temples' frosted hair.

Night comes. Deep dreams returning to the place
of brazen bells combed and disguised.
Mutuals regard: No words but 1000 tears to go
tell annual gain - intestines tell it so.
Moonlight short bright: Hillside returns to silent night.

Poem #7:

The worm is turning old
half of the wheat yellow
before the hill of king's - the hill of rain's - extravagance.

A farmer stops his plough
when woman's basket throws
white coating of a genie at exalted meeting place.

Poem #8: The number of your years

It's what you know that ends the year.
Having trespassed the serpent's pool
and found the scales, one here, one there,
like meanings in a symbol's spool

the pieces joining sail to ship
though knowing it's to no avail:
Unmarried, strong and cannot sleep
you watch the evening news that failed.

The rooster crowed. The morning cropped
night's double metric, changed its cost
and lit a lamp where ashes dropped
and rose to see the struggle lost.

The new year's bright like God's new year.
Heart matters are a waste of time
and try all modern things with fear
and praise the vanished year in rime.

(The stone was not really crystalline, but that is just the stone - that one understands the world not entirely right. Poem 5 has an alternative line which seems right but which cannot be defended by normal philology. 'Sail to ship' is not in the original - rather tail to body of the stone is the issue. The brazen bells (or 'chimes') seem to be a part of the poem but are a little hidden - the poem talks of her lofty window. The 'symbol's spool' is likewise hard to find in the original - but it makes sense. The title to poem 8 - as translated by me - is in fact something which I myself had observed in 'Stillhetens åndedrag' poem #23 stanza 3: "It lies in the hand's construction / like the rays in your hair / that reality's shadowing / is the number of your years").