| Face wine not aware get dark Fall flower fill my clothes Drunk stand step stream moon Bird far person also few | Facing my wine, I did not see the dusk, Falling blossoms have filled the folds of my clothes. Drunk, I rise and approach the moon in the stream, Birds are far off, people too are few. |
Hanzi, pinyin, and literal/literary English translations courtesy of chinese-poems.com.
I know criminally little about poetry, especially Chinese poetry, but I know what I like, and I get the impression that this poem might have led to the legend that Li Bai drowned while trying to embrace the reflection of the moon in a stream when he was drunk. Worse fates than that, I reckon.
Speaking of poets, I seem to meet and/or associate with a lot of them lately. This is a highly excellent thing, be they the regular circle of hookah-smoking folks I've spent most of my Saturdays with, or the Shakespeare-tattooed bartender at the icehouse, or the long-standing poet and professor Robert Phillips, whom I also encountered at the icehouse today. I've gotta say that it's a rare pleasure having folks appreciate, or at least be interested in hearing, my bursts of language that aren't directed into pure conversation or my novels. Thank y'all, and keep up the good work and good spirits.
Zaijian, Meiguo.
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