Lyrics from the Chinese- 'Zephyr'

May 2nd 2018

Hey world!

The other day a friend of mine got me this book called 'Lyrics from the Chinese' by H. Waddell.
It's this really old blue book with wizened, yellowing pages, but within it there is some amazing stuff. This type of poetry is more along the lines of song lyrics than poetry. All of it flows so smoothly, it's incredible to read and experience-when you read it you feel more than read. This is what poetry should do in my opinion- make you feel something deep down. Poetry makes us say what we couldn't or wouldn't say out loud. A quote that really illustrates this for me is not by a poet, but a British-Hungarian physicist called Dennis Gabor- "Poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them." See? you don't have be exclusively a poet to appreciate poetry.

Peach blossom after rain
Is deeper red;
The willow fresher green;
Twittering overhead;
And fallen petals lie wind-blown
Unswept upon the courtyard stone.

Isn't that amazing?
When I read this I can smell the wet warm earth after rain, the blossoms, I can hear the birds singing above me, and I can feel the willow swaying in the wind, I see the petals lying on the courtyard stones.
These lyrics are mostly organic snapshots of nature, and the peace that radiates out of them is just incredible. Who wouldn't feel zen thinking of peach blossoms after rain?

Here's another one:

On the moor is the creeping grass,
Parched, thirsting for the dew,
And over it the swallows dip and pass
The live-long summer through.
I came at sunset, fevered with the heat,
Seeking I knew not what what with listless feet.

On the moor is the creeping grass,
Deep-drenched with the dew,
And over it the swallows dip and pass,
The live-long summer through.
You came at sunrise, ere the dew was dried.
And I am satisfied.

This is is a nice one though I did have to read it more than once. I love the imagery in the first two lines-
'On the moor is the creeping grass,
Parched, thirsting for the dew,'
The grass being thirsty and drinking up the dew from the dawn is something people can picture. Another thing I picked up on was love- these poems are personal to the reader, there is no right or wrong meaning behind them. I guess that is the way with most poems. The person narrating the poem says 'I came at sunset, fevered with heat, seeking I knew not what with listless feet'- this shows that they feel that they are without purpose, they have no motivation or direction; they feel hopeless. Yet in the final two lines of the last verse, that purpose attaches itself to a person-

'You came at sunrise, ere the dew was dried.
And I am satisfied.'

White clouds are in the sky.
Great shoulders of the hills
Between us two must lie.
The road is rough and far.
Deep fords between us are.
I pray you do not die.

This one both touched and amused me. It amused me because of the final line, 'I pray you do not die'. It just seems like such a random ending to a wholly powerful poem. It touched me because I liked how the hills were described as shoulders (personification), it's a different way of describing the distance between lovers. Like there could be a person between the lovers...? I mean, I assume they are lovers. It could be between siblings or something. See what I mean? Everyone's interpretation of these poems are different. It also gets us asking questions- why must they be separated? Are the deep fords between the symbolism for something? Why are they apart in the first place?

This then leads to us filling in the blanks in our heads with the glorious power of our imaginations, which is a skill that should be preserved and encouraged in others in my opinion. The ability to make something magical and entirely your own in your head is the greatest kind of escapism next to books. As a child, I was always making up worlds with my sister, creating games, whole galaxies. The sky was our limit. It saddens me that these amazing worlds of imagination have been replaced by screens (those of you who have read my post on 'Pied Beauty' by George Manley Hopkins will be aware of my opinion of the subject).

After reading this short anthology of lyric poems, I was inspired to write my own on May 3rd-

The dappled grass, shifting shadows dance in the sun.
The trumpet sounding spring’s arrival,
Holding you, watching the coming rain.

Rain clouds releasing their grief on the land below,
Hovering bruise-like over the horizon;
The remnants of a rainbow.

Along with the little poems I have just shown you, I ended up creating a longer poem with some lyric poetry/ prose poetry influences. It just so happened to be a sunny, glorious day outside and I decided to go outside and lay on the grass, close my eyes and really feel something.

This goes back to my previous posts on Keat's concept Negative Capability, when I tired to shut out all thoughts (knowledge) of what was around me, and I tried to just look at what was in front of me with zero preconceptions. After I did this, I came inside and wrote this poem on April 21st. It's called 'Zephyr':

Looking up into the jewel sky, the moon, a pail fingernail perched in the depths, grins down sheepishly, Pleased to be seen with the sun still on this side of the world.
I walked slowly across the grass, a bee and I passed each other.
I nodded my head, lifted my hat, but he was too caught up in this flash of spring to stop and chat: there Were daffodils to see to.
I shrugged and kept going, gazing up at the invisible stars in the sapphire iris above me. It stared back, Unblinking. At least someone is keeping an eye on me.
The snow-white linen sways blissfully on the line, unaware of anything else.The daffodils reflect the sun’s Glory back at her, bobbing gently in the zephyr that ruffles their blonde hair.
I glanced over at the great tree in the corner of the yard-
It too lifted his twiggy limbs and sighed long and satisfied in the sunlight. He's been a bit sick recently, My tree. The whole late spring thing didn't really agree with him. He is a creature of routine, and was not Impressed with the snow in early April. Now he seems to have gotten over the delay, he uncoils his rough Fists, allowing the sun to bejewel his fingers with rings of tiny pink buds. I swear there are more this Evening than there were this morning. I'm glad to see he is better.

As John Keats said- "The poetry of earth is never dead".
So true.

-A.H 🐝