Day: August 10, 2014

Jingting Shan Hill (after Li Po)

Beautiful

robert okaji's avatarO at the Edges

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Jingting Shan Hill (after Li Po)

Distant birds flying high
the lonely cloud and I drift
watching each other without end
until only the hill remains.

As always, I question my choices. Chinese-Poems.com offered this transliteration of Li Po’s timeless poem:

Crowd birds high fly utmost
Lonely cloud alone go idle
Mutual watch both not tire
Only be Jingting Shan

How to capture the concept of idleness and the meditative quality of the last line (not to mention the piece as a whole)? Ah, decisions, decisions…

Confession: The last line confounded me, so I set the poem aside for a couple of months. Just yesterday I pulled it out and immediately knew what to do. The power of patience…

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Only the stillness

.

With what ceremonial geometry
Could I describe the sympathy of the parts to the whole?
What self can contain the feelings engendered by
the response of the heart of the tree. and my heart,
to the space and light offered
and how the clouds float away on the wind
as I stand ,hand on my throat, gazing;
and the new moon points me out to the sky.

What laughter is there in this moment of dancing?
We see only the stillness
but know while we are turned away
a young girl and an old woman murmur together
as one passes the movement to the other.
Caught in the camera, in a moment of rest,
the tree obeys the law of gravity
before levity arises at the moment we turn away
and the dance goes on and the tree is alive with inner movement

E-nailed with flowers

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From stan.tan@tandem.com To Mary@tandem.com

Hi Mary,I recollected you are my wife.I do not require a wife who is interested in philosophy but as you are so perfect in all other ways,I guess I can’t throw you over yet.Besides I am 99 next week and probably senile.So just ignore my rude jokes and stupid answers From your adoring husband Stan .. as to what I adore,let’s keep it a secret.

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Hi Stan,I can’t remember why the hell I married you as you are the opposite of all i need and desire.Would you mind if my boyfriend moves in.He is doing a D,Phil on Wittgenstein and food so it could be quite stimulating at dinner time.Not that Wittgenstein ate much but Tom had to find a new angle,as it were,on the great man…I also wondered of he could bring in Lacan but as I find him so implacably  hostile to understanding i have refused the thoughts.As you and i no longer share a bed,you won’t even notice Tom is with me.. I hope not as men can be very jealous even if they don’t want their wife,they don’t want another man to enjoy her sumptuous appeal.as it were,in a manner of speaking.you get my drift.Well,to cut a long story short i slept with Tom and he smells good…so he;s coming to stay for the weekend.I hope you have done the baking

The Conference is the most boring I’ve ever endured on numbers.Irregular,regular,passive,impassive,neutral,live, it’s not mathematics as I have known it before,more like a tabloid newspaper.Still, it’s probably some post modern slant.. wonder what comes after postmodern… Prefuture? Premature,Pre stupid…

i wonder if I can continue.Please pump  up my tyres and clean the computer and I’ll see you Friday as per norm,therm an derm

A hug from your devoted wife,Mary