scruta

I am carried through these listless days

Still frantic and amazed

Crying with awe at every sight

As pink skies fly into the night

Still the world moves quick

And I’m full of hope

My expectations taut

Tight as rope

I’m a tightrope walker

Walking where I please

I feel the adrenaline

Fly through my knees

There are fantastic dreams

That still catch my eye

Although most of my visions

Are programmed, by and by

There are still adulations

To be cried to all above

Although most of life

Is lost in regular push and shove

I want my smile to be a touchstone

A reminder in my mirror’s gaze

That yes! yes, I am living!

Through all these listless days

Your humble Ferret recently went to a banquet at a very fancy Cantonese restaurant and stuffed himself silly.

While eating some “hand-fried squid” (手炸鱿鱼), I noticed that they were sitting on a piece of paper with a Chinese poem written on it.

Having 干杯’d a little too much wine, I attempted to read it 繁体字 and all in front of some Chinese folks. I did okay and only made a few mistakes, blustering my way through it like a 7 year old. But it didn’t really matter anyway. All the Chinese people there knew it by heart.

<春晓＞
唐•孟浩然

春眠不觉晓
处处闻啼鸟
夜来风雨声
花落知多少

“Springtime Awakening”

Meng Haoran (Tang)

A springtime sleep, day breaks without me knowing
Everywhere I hear birdsong
The night was full of the sound of storms
Who knows how many flowers have fallen?

(Apparently there is a political angle to all of this, i.e. flowers getting blown away in the night. I don’t know what that had to do with fried squid. 炒鱿鱼 maybe?)

Skyscrapers unfolding in the cold night air

Petals of iron bars and green mesh ready to fall away

And you too are what you are, unfolding in the night

This skin, this fragile frame ready to slip off

And let you reach for the sky.

Away from here and far

Where the ocean meets the land

And the sun peaks down

Through the curtain of clouds

Like the iris of an eye

Blinded long ago.

No one will see you here

Where the streets pulse

Against the limits of nothingness

And the windows of the houses

Are shut tight against the rising black.

If you shine here, you can

Only shine like a star

Burning hard and fast

Raging with a fire to stay alive

Raging with a fire those outside

Can never know.

Learning Chinese in Shanghai:

A shopkeeper insists on using English

To sell me Chinese books.

The checkered patterns of these linen hearts

Will ripple in the summer breezes

Dry and fresh, they will wonder how they’ve grown.

And about humanity?

We are just not monkeys –

Where you put the emphasis tells the tale.

You have to step away from the past

To see that it’s passed.

Love isn’t difficult;

It’s actually quite simple,

And that’s what’s so difficult about it.

Live with the strength of bamboo shoots,

Climb to the sky; affirm your roots.