Nature Poems of Wang Wei

 

One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken. …LEO TOLSTOY

 

I want to celebrate World Environmental Day with the poems of Wang Wei

 

Wang Wei (701-761 C.E.) is often spoken of, with his contemporaries Li Po and Tu Fu, as one of the three greatest poets in China's 3,000-year poetic tradition. Of the three, Wang was the consummate master of the short imagistic landscape poem that came to typify classical Chinese poetry. He developed a nature poetry of resounding tranquility wherein deep understanding goes far beyond the words on the page―a poetics that can be traced to his assiduous practice of Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism. But in spite of this philosophical depth, Wang is not a difficult poet. Indeed, he may be the most immediately appealing of China's great poets and he may even sound utterly contemporary. Many of his best poems are incredibly concise, composed of only twenty words, and they often turn on the tiniest details: a bird's cry, a splinter of light on moss, an egret's wingbeat. Such imagistic clarity is not surprising since Wang was also one of China's greatest landscape painters. 

 

On Leaving the Wang River retreat

By Wang Wei

Translated by David Hinton

 

At last I put my carriage in motion

Go sadly out from these ivied pines

Can I bear to leave these blue hills?

And the green stream – what of that?

 

It’s deceptively simple. These four lines carry so much meaning. The narrator is leaving, but that doesn’t matter. The reasons for his departure aren’t important. The real world isn’t important. The issues are small and perhaps petty when faced with such glory. His surroundings here mean more to him, in this instance, than the whole of mankind combined. Leaving the purity of the ivied pines behind is a lamentable loss. Walking away from the blue hills, the hills of stability, of intelligence and of heaven itself is no easy departure. They represent much. It’s all about the colours. The sky and the sea are both blue, as are these symbolic hills. And the stream, the green stream, that represents oneness with nature that is the hardest of all to walk away from. The line “at last I put my carriage in motion,” says it all. The reluctance is palpable. Simple language is the key. 

 

Drifting on the Lake

By Wang Wei

Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping 

 

Autumn is crisp and the firmament far,

especially far from where people live.

I look at cranes on the sand

and am immersed in joy when I see mountains beyond the clouds.

Dusk inks the crystal ripples.

Leisurely the white moon comes out.

Tonight I am with my oar, alone, and can do everything,

yet waver, not willing to return.

 

Sketching Things

By Wang Wei

Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping 

 

Slender clouds. On the pavilion a small rain.

Noon, but I'm too lazy to open the far cloister.

I sit looking at moss so green

my clothes are soaked with color.

 

Cooling Off

By Wang Wei

Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping 

 

Clear waters drift through the immensity of a tall forest.

In front of me a huge river mouth

receives the long wind.

Deep ripples hold white sand

and white fish swimming as in a void.

I sprawl on a big rock,

billows nourishing my humble body.

I gargle with water and wash my feet.

A fisherman pauses out on the surf.

So many fish long for bait. I look

only to the east with its lotus leaves.

 

The poetry of Wang Wei is very much driven by descriptions of nature. Regardless of what’s happening in the world, whether it’s war or a woeful departure, nature remains a beautiful inspiration. Nothing can change that for him, as he marches on, as he plods through life, the splendor of nature remains. 

 

Let us Reimagine, Recreate and Restore Nature on this World Environmental Day

Back Home Again

 

T’ao Ch’ien (365–427 A.D.), equally well-known by his given name, T’ao Yüan-ming, stands at the head of the great Chinese poetic tradition like a revered grandfather: profoundly wise, self-possessed, quiet, comforting. T’ao was the first writer to make a poetry of his natural voice and immediate experience, thereby creating the personal lyricism which all major Chinese poets inherited and made their own.

The outlines of T’ao Ch’ien’s life – his struggle to free himself from the constraints of official life and his eventual commitment to the life of a recluse-farmer, despite poverty and hardship – became one of the central, organizing myths in the Chinese tradition. By 405, the T’ao family was apparently destitute. That spring, desperate for a means of supporting his family, T’ao took a job on the staff of Liu Yü, although the circumstances are unclear. Then in the fall, he took a position as magistrate in P’eng-tse, thirty miles northeast of his home. He resigned from this post after only eighty days citing his inner urge to return to village. This time he left public life for good, even though he had no means of support other than farm work, which had proven painfully unreliable. Although he received several requests to serve in the government, T’ao farmed in the Ch’ai-sang/Hsün-yang area until his death twenty-two years later.

He is regarded as the foremost representative of what we now know as Fields and Gardens poetry. T’ao Ch’ien found inspiration in the beauty and serenity of the natural world close at hand.

Here is the lovely poem he wrote after his final return to home sweet home.

Back Home Again

By T’ao Ch’ien

Translated by David Hinton

 
Back home –
with fields and gardens all weeds back home,
how can I stay here, my heart a slave to the body?
Why live this dismal life, this lonely grief?
You can’t argue with what’s been done, I know,
but the future’s there to be made. Not too far
gone down this road of delusion, I can see
where I’m right today, yesterday I was wrong.

Far from home, the boat rocking on gentle
swells, my robe snaps in billowing winds.
Asking travelers how the road ahead is,
I wonder how morning light can be so dim,
but seeing our house, suddenly
happy, I break into a run.
Servants greet me gleefully,
and my kids there at the gate.
Our three paths are grown over,
but pines and chrysanthemums
survived. And taking everyone
inside, I find wine waiting.
Pouring a cup from the winejar, I smile, happy
to see these courtyard trees. At the window
my presumptions drift away south. How easily
content I am in this cramped little place.
Here, garden strolls bring joy day after day:
our gate always closed, propped on my old-folk’s
walking-stick, I go a little ways, then rest,
and turning my head, look far away. Clouds
leaving mountain peaks drift without a thought,
and tired of flight, birds think of return.
At sunset, light fading slowly away, I linger
fondly over a lone pine, nowhere I’d rather be.

Back home again —
O let me keep to myself, my wandering ended.
Let the world and I give each other up.
If I left again, what would I go looking for?
It’s loving family voices that make me happy,
koto and books that keep worried grief away.
And farmers here tell me spring has arrived. Soon,
there’ll be work out in the western fields.
Sometimes in a covered cart,
sometimes rowing a lone boat –
I’ll search out sheltered streams and quiet pools,
follow mountain paths up through the hills.
Trees revel in the joy of their lavish blossoms,
and murmuring springs flow again. In these
ten thousand things, each following its season
away perfectly, I touch that repose in which
life ends, done and gone.
This form I am in the world can’t last much longer.
Why not let things carry my heart away with them?
What good is it, agonizing over the way things are going?
Getting rich isn’t what I want. And who
expects to end in some celestial village?
My dream is to walk out all alone into a lovely
morning – maybe stop to pull weeds in the garden,
maybe climb East Ridge and chant, settling into
my breath, or sit writing poems beside a clear
stream. I’ll ride change back to my final home,
rejoicing in heaven’s way. How can it ever fail me? 

Note : Koto is an ancient stringed instrument which Chinese poets used as an accompaniment to chant of their poems.

AN IDLE 9/9 AT HOME

 

AN IDLE 9/9 AT HOME

By T’ao Ch’ien

Translated by David Hinton

 Spending an idle 9/9 at home, I think fondly of how the day’s name sounds like it’s saying ever and ever. Autumn chrysanthemums fill the dooryard. But without wine, their blossoms promising ever-lasting life are useless, so I trust my feelings to words.

 

Life too short for so many lasting desires,

people adore immortality. When the months

 

return to this day of promise, everyone

fondly hears ever and ever in its name.

 

Warm winds have ended. Now, dew ice-cold,

stars blaze in clear skies. And though

 

the swallows have gone, taking their shadows,

calling geese keep arriving. Wine dispels

 

worries by the hundred, and chrysanthemums

keep us from the ruins of age. But if you

 

live in a bramble hut, helplessly watching

these turning seasons crumble – what then?

 

My empty winejar shamed by a dusty cup, this

cold splendor of blossoms opens for itself

 

alone. I tighten my robe and sing to myself,

idle, overwhelmed by each memory. So many

 

joys to fill a short stay. I’ll take my time

here. It is whole. How could it be any less?

 

T’ao Ch’ien (365–427 A.D.), also known as T'ao Yuan-ming, stands at the head of the great Chinese poetic tradition like a revered grandfather: profoundly wise, self-possessed, quiet, comforting. T’ao was the first writer to make a poetry of his natural voice and immediate experience, thereby creating the personal lyricism which all major Chinese poets inherited and made their own. And in the quiet resonance of his poetry, a poetry that still speaks today’s language, they recognized a depth and clarity of wisdom that seemed beyond them.

T’ao Ch’ien dwelled in the Great Transformation (ta-hua), earth’s process of change in which whatever occurs comes “of itself” (tzu-jan: literally “self-so,” hence “natural” or “spontaneous”). But T’ao was much more than a romantic enthralled with the pastoral. He settled on his secluded farm because earth’s Great Transformation was perfectly immediate there, because there he could live life as it comes of itself, as it ends of itself. When he spoke of leaving government service and returning to the life of a recluse-farmer, he spoke of “returning to tzu-jan.” He took comfort in death as an even more complete return, a return to his “native home.” Although he grieved over loss and dying because he knew the actual to be all there is, he also knew that whatever is alive, himself included, ceases to be as naturally as it comes to be.

T’ao’s return to tzu-jan was also a return to self. His poems are suffused with wonder at the elemental fact of consciousness, and at the same time, his poetry of dwelling initiated that intimate sense of belonging to the earth which shapes the Chinese poetic sensibility.

I hope the above poem written on the day 9/9 of Chinese Calendar exemplifies all the essential aspects of his poetry. How many of us feel the whole in the surrounds we live?

 Ref: Selected Poems of T’ao Ch’ien. Translated by David Hinton. Copper Canyon Press

 

A poem by Meng Chiao

A poem by Meng Chiao

Translated by David Hinton

Though few of our fellow humans grieve,
the birds and beasts all call out in sorrow,
and however senseless they seem at first,
they've reached into the depths of heaven.
No child means no tears when you sicken,
no father no one to suffer your memories.
Why separate family from everyone else?
To do it, people use the rites like a knife,
so you died alone, buried without mourners,
I kept lament to myself, hid this worry,
and let other hands lift you into the grave.
How can I praise their devotion now, your
sincerity? Lost, lost -- a childless old man
like another feather lost among the molt.

( Note: molt is a clutter of feathers left by birds)

Until the age of forty, Meng Chiao (A.D. 751--814) lived as a poet-recluse associated with Ch'an (Zen) poet-monks in south China. He then embarked on a rather unsuccessful career as a government official. After his retirement, Meng developed an innovative poetry style that made him a consummate poetry master. His is an experimental poetry of virtuosic beauty, a poetry that anticipated landmark developments in the modern Western tradition by a millennium. With the T'ang Dynasty crumbling, Meng's later work employed surrealist and symbolist techniques as it turned to a deep introspection. His late work is singular not only for its bleak introspection and "avant-garde" methods, but also for its dimensions.

I was reading a lot of his “Late Poems” tonight and this poem, steeped in immense sadness , about a loner captured my heart. It also made me think of the fate of millions of refugees severed from their near and dear by the tragedies of our times.