司空圖二十四詩品《曠達》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 23 - "Acceptance"

One of the meanings of this poem's title, 曠達, is "broad-mindedness," which is how I originally translated it. Broad-mindedness is a trait worthy of pursuit, though like everything else, moderation is important. Giving equal credence to every stupid idea you have or come across isn't being broad-minded, it's a recipe for disappointment and disaster.

Here, though, as the poem itself makes quickly known, Sikong Tu isn't talking about that sort of thinking. He's encouraging acceptance of what is, which is broad-mindedness of a different kind; specifically, accepting that the good things in life are fleeting, and in that ephemerality lies their beauty. Hell, even getting old has its charms—you can get drunk and go for a walk and nobody will give a fuck (or, rather, they shouldn't). 

Knowing every other sentient being on earth is subject to the same processes of birth, old age, sickness, and death, which are as seemingly eternal as Nanshan and all the other mountains beloved by Chinese poets, makes this acceptance all the more crucial. There's no Sikong Tu, no me, no you, just this field of consciousness and experience; once we truly realize that, acceptance loses its connotations of defeat and resignation, and becomes a means of being truly open to the universe.

微臣

史大偉

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曠達

司空圖

生者百歲

相去幾何

歡樂苦短

憂愁實多

何如尊酒

日往煙蘿

花覆茅檐

疏雨相過

倒酒既盡

杖藜行歌

孰不有古

南山峨峨

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"Acceptance"

Sikong Tu

I may live a hundred years

yet leave so little behind—

joy is bitterly short-lived,

worry and sadness ever mounting

But what of a cup of wine,

walking among lush plants each day,

thatched eaves overrun with flowers,

sparse rain passing by?

The wine is all gone;

goosefoot cane in hand, I stroll and sing—

“who is exempt from getting old

while lofty Nanshan still looms?”

司空圖二十四詩品《飄逸》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 22 - "Graceful Ease"

We're getting close to the end of the Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, but I'm no more fond of referring to each of these poems as representative of a class of poetry than I was at the beginning. My friend and colleague suggests using "mood," but even that seems inadequate, given how similar a lot of the poems are in terms of tone.

Not a lot else to say about this one, so I'll leave you to it, reader.

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飄逸

司空圖

落落欲往

矯矯不群

緱山之鶴

華頂之雲

高人畫中

令色氤氳
禦風蓬葉

泛彼無垠

如不可執

如將有聞

識者已領

期之愈分

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"Graceful Ease"

Sikong Tu

Long estranged, wanting to be gone—

high above the masses

like the crane atop Mount Gou,

the clouds at Mount Hua's peak

In the great man's portrait

a commanding appearance, full of life

a violent wind scatters leaves

that drift far away

Seemingly ungraspable,

on the verge of making itself known—

those who know already understand

those who hope, ever more separated

司空圖二十四詩品《超詣》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 21 - "Above and Beyond"

We're getting close to the end of Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry. Here the poet gives us another very Daoist piece. I particularly like how the first stanza's negative couplet is undercut by the following one; there's a subtlety of difference that's mostly beyond me, but at the same time it's abundantly clear what he's talking about.

The second stanza's bit about how following the Dao invariably leads to breaking with custom is ironic, seeing as how Sikong Tu, and most Chinese poets, came from the scholar-gentry class and routinely incorporated withdrawal from society into the broader fabric of their lives. Obviously this doesn't nullify what he's getting at in the poem, but rare was the Chinese poet whose life as a hermit was actually lived alone, disconnected completely from society. 

See y'all soon with poem #22. In the meantime, I recommend Upusen's latest album, Highland Ave. It's chill without getting too melancholy—and I don't know about you, dudes, but I have had my fill of melancholy lately.

微臣
史大偉

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超詣

司空圖

匪神之靈

匪幾之微

如將白雲

清風與歸

遠引若至

臨之已非

少有道契

終與俗違

亂山喬木

碧苔芳暉

誦之思之

其聲愈希

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"Above and Beyond"
Sikong Tu

It is not the vitality of the spirit

it is not the intangibility of phenomena

but like being borne along on white clouds,

returning on a cool breeze

From afar it seems to draw near

reaching it, it is already gone

if one complements the Dao from early on

one will ultimately break with custom

Jumbled mountains, tall trees

blue-green moss, brilliant sunlight

recite it, think on it

the sound of it growing ever more faint

RIP John Saxon

I'll leave biographical notes, and praise for John Saxon's seminal role in Enter the Dragon, to others: I'm just here to lament the passing of Nancy Thompson's dad and reminisce about A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Like any kid born on a cultural cusp, I didn't get to see the cultural touchstones that were the A Nightmare on Elm Street films in sequential order. I saw Dream Warriors first, in 1989 or 1990, at a friend's house in Miami during a sleepover, but I knew about them before then. In '87, or more likely '88, during another sleepover in northern Virginia at my mom's friend's family's place, one of the older girls sang, against the backdrop of Kid Icarus and Deadly Towers and forgotten toothbrushes, the haunting snippet of what it would take over a decade for me to fully identify and, courtesy of Diamond Head Records in Spring, Texas, acquire on vinyl: Dokken's "Dream Warriors." Having this sort of fragmentary info in hand when I finally saw the eponymous film seems, in retrospect, representative of my overall approach to knowledge and appreciation of art, but that's a tangent I'll go off on some other time.

As invested as I was in the fate of those kids in Dream Warriors—and I'll be damned if I still ain't every time I watch it—the tension between Nancy and her old man, played out under neon bar signs amidst the reek of Michelob and Marlboro Reds, always stood out to me as well. Eventually I learned he was the hard-headed asshole cop who didn't listen to his daughter when it mattered most, which made his bummer days as a drunk destined to get multi-knifed by a Harryhausen skeleton even more poignant, and Nancy's demise even more appalling.

I got lucky in the birth karma department and had good parents, unlike Nancy Thompson and the rest of the Elm Street kids, so I never had to find out the hard way that my folks were hiding lynchings from me. Still, John Saxon did a great job of playing the father burdened not just by his duties as a cop, but the weight of being part of a murderous mob, and I will always appreciate him for that. A Nightmare on Elm Street wouldn't have been the same without him, and I wouldn't have learned to appreciate the family I have otherwise.

Thanks, John. Rest in power, on this damp, dark summer night.

司空圖二十四詩品《形容》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 20 - "Form and Appearance"

The title and content of this poem is a bit vexing. 形 means form or appearance, as does 容, so there's not really a contrast between the two—it's not as if one stands for the inner form of something and the other its outward appearance. On top of that, taken together the characters mean "describe" or "description." There's inevitably some subtlety I'm missing, but I'll be damned if I can figure it out at the moment.

I like Sikong Tu's admonition to stop seeking the numinous and pure in favor of recognizing that what you're looking for in those things is right here in front of you. I especially dig the last couplet, which is a little clunky in my version; here he uses 似 rather than 容, but the meaning is effectively the same, and thus we're back at my original question of why he went with this phrasing.

I read this and saw a transition between the second and third stanzas, which is something I don't often do, but maybe should. Other poets might make more use of such a technique, so keeping an eye out for it would be worthwhile.

Stay safe, folks. It's been a brutal summer, and it's far from over.

微臣
史大偉

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形容

司空圖

絕佇靈素

少回清真

如覓水影

如寫陽春

風雲變態

花草精神
海之波瀾

山之嶙峋

俱似大道

妙契同塵

離形得似

庶幾斯人

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"Form and Appearance"

Sikong Tu

Cease expecting the numinous and pure

and soon clear reality will return—

as in seeking water's shadow

as in tracing the springtime

Clouds on the wind, appearances ever changing

flowers and grasses, essence and spirit

the sea's towering waves

the mountains' craggy ranks—

Completely like the great Dao

subtly inscribed in the dust of this world

leaving behind form to grasp appearance—

surely this resembles what it is to be human?

司空圖二十四詩品 《悲慨》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 19 - "Forlorn"

This poem couldn't be more timely. Some reflections, tied to each stanza:

1: Last night I had a dream about trees falling in the woods; the night before the cats woke me up at 4:40 and I never got back to sleep. 

2: Fortune and status? Neither was ever on the table, and as time flows by, they're even less likely to be. The Dao never falters; if we're looking for inspiration or models and don't find them, it's our own fault, because they're everywhere.

3. The state gives fools swords, has them do its dirty work, and nothing but misery follows; then it calls them heroes. Nothing has changed.

See? 1200-year-old Chinese poetry still resonates. Catch y'all next time for #20.

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悲慨

司空圖

大風卷水

林木為摧

適苦欲死

招憩不來

百歲如流

富貴冷灰
大道日喪

若為雄才

壯士拂劍

浩然彌哀

蕭蕭落葉

漏雨蒼苔

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"Forlorn"

Sikong Tu

Strong wind roils the water

trees topple in the forest

so miserable I want to die—

rest beckons, but does not come

A hundred years like a flowing stream

fortune and status are cold ashes

every day the great Dao falters—

who will serve as inspiration?

A hero unsheathes his sword—

a flood of utter grief

mournful wind, falling leaves

dripping rain on grey-green moss

司空圖二十四詩品《實境》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 18 - "Domain of the Real"

I'm not terribly pleased with my title for this translation, since 境 often means border or boundary. I'll give it some thought and come up with a better title, since the atmosphere Sikong Tu evokes here does feel like some kind of liminal space, albeit one infused with the everyday reality of the Dao.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's a juvenile Cooper's hawk in the birdbath that I need to admire. Later, dudes.

微臣

史大偉

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實境

司空圖

取語甚直

計思匪深

忽逢幽人

如見道心

清澗之曲

碧松之陰

一客荷樵

一客聽琴

情性所至

妙不自尋

遇之自天

泠然希音

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"Domain of the Real"

Sikong Tu

Adopt plain speech

to sum up simple ideas.

Suddenly coming across a hermit

is like seeing into the heart of the Dao.

The bend of a clear stream,

the shade of dark-green pines—

a stranger carrying firewood,

another listening to the music of the qin

A feeling brought me to this place,

marvelous, unsought—

out of nowhere,

the clear but faint sound of music.

司空圖二十四詩品《委曲》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 17 - "The Winding Way"

Poem #17 has one of my favorite images thus far: the "blue-green path coiled like sheep intestines." This path winds through the 太行山 Taihang mountains, which are situated in northern China. The 羌 Qiang people, however, hail from southwest China, these days primarily living in Sichuan. (You can hear the Qiang flute here.) This sort of spatial juxtaposition isn't that uncommon in Chinese poetry, but I wonder why Sikong Tu chose these particular mountains and this particular instrument and people. Maybe he heard such a flute at a moment that illustrated "effort at the right time," and it ended up being just the right image he needed for this poem.

The 鵬 peng bird appears, perhaps most famously, in 莊子 Zhuangzi, the next most famous/important Daoist text after the 道德經 Daodejing. Due to its great size, it's often compared to the roc, another giant mythical bird.

May you all know roundness and squareness alike, and take care, folks.

微臣

史大偉

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委曲

司空圖

登彼太行

翠繞羊腸

杳靄流玉

悠悠花香

力之於時

聲之於羌

似往已回

如幽匪藏

水理漩洑

鵬風翺翔

道不自器

與之圓方

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"The Winding Way"

Sikong Tu

Climbing Mount Taihang:

blue-green path coiled like sheep intestines,

dark clouds a sort of jade,

faint hint of fragrant blossoms

Effort at the right time:

sound of a Qiang flute,

seemingly going but already returning,

remote, but not hidden

Water churns with eddies and currents,

mythical peng bird soars on the wind:

Dao is not a thing unto itself,

but knows roundness and squareness alike

司空圖二十四詩品《清奇》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 16 - "Clear and Wondrous"

This poem marks 2/3 of the way through Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry. This one stands out a bit because it directly refers to another person: 可人, which I've rendered as "beloved" but could also be someone with a good personality or gifted in some way (qualities one might hope to see in one's beloved, naturally). However you choose to read it, the description of this person as "like jade" buttresses their value to the speaker, and/or gives readers a hint as to the person's appearance—the sort of jade usually referenced in Chinese poems isn't the greenish stuff we're used to in the west, but more often the pale whitish-yellow variety, so perhaps this person has a lovely complexion.

The character 屟 "wooden clogs" didn't readily appear in most of my dictionaries, but it's a variant of the more common 屧. I have no idea how common wooden shoes were in Tang China, or what form they took. I'm imagining something like Japanese geta, but I could be way off.

Hope all is well with you, dear reader. See you soon.

微臣

史大偉

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清奇

司空圖

娟娟群松

下有漪流

晴雪滿竹

隔溪漁舟

可人如玉

步屟尋幽
載瞻載止

空碧悠悠

神出古異

淡不可收

如月之曙

如氣之秋

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"Clear and Wondrous"

Sikong Tu

A lovely stand of pines

beneath it, rippling water

clear skies, snow-laden bamboos

on the stream, fishing boats go their own ways

My beloved like jade

measured steps in wooden clogs, as I follow in the darkness

looking up one moment, stopping the next

deep blue sky impossibly far

My spirit leaves, the old ways grown strange,

faded, beyond reach

like the moon at dawn,

like the essence of autumn

司空圖 二十四詩品《疏野》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 15 - "Unconstrained"

One of the greatest strengths of classical Chinese poetry is its temporal ambiguity: unless it's specifically mentioned, there's no way of knowing when something is occurring/has occurred/will occur. Things and events are caught in time like insects in ever-flowing amber, and thus temporal positioning is unimportant. After all, everything meaningful: whether it's a past event that continues to resonate in the present, an emotional/psychic state that has us in its clutches here and now, or the imagined form of some future happening that affects our current behavior, it can't be separated into a discrete thing or things outside of our perceptions or beyond causality. We act otherwise, of course, but just because that tendency to separate self from other, subject from object, is a feature of human consciousness, it doesn't mean we're utter slaves to some mechanistic understanding thereof.

I bring this up because I've rendered parts of Sikong Tu's poems as orders or suggestions, which they very well may be, but they could just as easily be translated in the past tense, and thus as descriptions of the poet's (or whomever he's describing) experiences. In "Unconstrained" I have everything happening in the present, which gives the reader the idea that the narrator is reflecting on an unfolding experience of possible enlightenment, and/or doubt about such a state. Did Sikong Tu experience what Rinzai Zen (which has its roots in the teachings of 臨濟義玄 Linji Yixuan, a contemporary of Sikong Tu) calls 見性 kensho, and see his true self? Or is he repeating what, even in Tang times, was established, maybe even to the point of being trite and snoozy, understanding of the nature of things and how to truly perceive it?

 

Neither possibility excludes the other, and neither is the only answer. Read the poem and mull it over on your own, dear reader. The great matter of life and death inhabits this poem like it does all other things, and I'd be curious to see what you think.

Dig it.

微臣

史大偉

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疏野

司空圖

惟性所宅

真取不羈

控物自富

與率為期

築室松下

脫帽看詩

但知旦暮

不辨何時

倘然適意

豈必有為

若其天放

如是得之

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"Unconstrained"

Sikong Tu

Pondering the dwelling-place of one's true nature,

one can seize the Real, uninhibited;

a grasp of all things leads to inner abundance,

with candor comes hope.

An abode built beneath the pines,

bare-headed, reading poetry,

knowing only dawn and dusk,

the seasons running together.

Supposing an agreeable state of mind,

why is action necessary?

If one is as free and easy as the sky,

is this not attainment?

司空圖二十四詩品《縝密》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 14 - "Tight-knit"

I meant to post this last week, but never got around to it. Not a whole lot to talk about here, so I'll let the poem speak for itself. I'm pretty pleased with how my translation turned out.

Wear your mask, stay home as much as you can, and be safe, y'all.

微臣
史大偉

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縝密

司空圖 

是有真跡

如不可知

意象欲出

造化已奇

水流花開

清露未晞
要路愈遠

幽行為遲

語不欲犯

思不欲癡

猶春於綠

明月雪時

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"Tight-knit"

Sikong Tu

That bears the mark of the real

which resembles the unknowable—

concepts seeking to emerge

already made mundane by the force of change.

Flowing water, blooming flowers

bright dew not yet evaporated

the only road stretches ever on—

a lonely path, slow going.

Strive to speak without offense

strive to think without foolishness—

be as spring is green,

as moonlight on falling snow.