november

People say the sea is deep —
it's not as deep by half as love.
The sea at least still has its coasts, 
love's farthest reaches have no shore.
With harp in hand I'll climb the tower
To empty rooms full of the moon,
And strum the song of missing him.
My heart and harp will break as one.

Li Ye
poet-courtesan (and perhaps Daoist nun), 
8th century

(note: i borrowed the first 4 lines of the translation from Women Writers of Traditional China, while the last 4 are translated by A.Z. Foreman, i liked his version better in this case)

autumn

I cross autumn fields
 In my dew-laden robes
 On my return home.
 Flowers woefully withered,
 Evening has yet to arrive.


Sōgi

both

there is an autumn of luxuriance, of soft colours, deepened by rain and mist - 

an autumn which is but a different kind of spring, making me unsure of how time flows (and returns, always, to the same point). 

and there is an autumn of austere moods, of slow fading back to the roots of formlessness (except that there will always be, somewhere, quietly pulsing at the core of unadornedness, the blood of  berries - even in the snow its pulse will go on, a steady reminder of the same return). 

i am both autumns.

there is a way out

speech is blasphemy, silence a lie. above speech and silence there is a way out - said Chan master I-Tuan, roughly twelve centuries ago. 

on this mid-autumn day, no different than other mid-autumn days, than the ones I-Tuan  himself must have known, this way out is the way of the yellow flower.

in the end...

in the end it is only colours that matter. they remind me of you at sunset, when light turns upon itself and autumn comes to die upon your skin, lingers for a while in your eyes then suddenly sinks into you to make your bones glow from within, for just a while longer.


in the end it is only the bird's flight that matters. it reminds me of nothing but itself. this and...


the promise of the sky at dawn?


no, just its emptiness. this and the emptiness of the sky.

..

these autumn fields

between my withering body
and these autumn fields -
the blue.

..

yellow

despair is yellow - said the blue peacock -
you poets live off metaphors, i laughed.
with sweet disdain forsythia bloomed everywhere,
my dress glimmered with little yellow butterflies
which made you smile.

despair is yellow. i ask you to come to my throat
like a knife, i sweep through you recklessly,
once more, before the last.

time spreads in us both its peacock tail.
we fumble for the fall of leaves, for the thinned blood,
we live off metaphors, once more, before the last.

..

early september

returning home, and returning home in early autumn - impossible not to fall prey to the sweetness of melancholia, i don't even try not to, supposing that i were someone investing such struggle with meaning (which i am not, i don't know whether fortunately or less so).

back then, in the days of childhood, autumn used to mean diving into a world of distinct tastes and fragrances, a world of jubilation untouched by what i would later learn to call nostalgia: grape juice and fresh walnuts. grape juice from the small vine adorning the front wall of our house, facing the street, and fresh walnuts from the big tree, pivotal like an axis mundi in the middle of our garden. i was not aware then that we were blessed to be allowed to have this small piece of land around the house, even to have a house, when everywhere around us houses fell under the madness of the communist regime, eager to replace them with the grey blocks of flats, the ugliest buildings ever. i would also find out later that our house had finally been included on the black list, the erased area had spread around us like a death wave, at last reaching the point of swallowing us when the revolution came, only months before the fatal blow.

i don't know the name of these grapes in english, for whatever mysterious reason they are called 'ananas' in Romania (meaning 'pineapple', though everybody had yet to see a real pineapple back then). i was fascinated by their dark-bluish colour and by something like fog on their skin, the way breath stains a glass in winter or haze seems to remain attached on the hair of the beloved, on a frosty day. as everybody else privileged enough to have a garden, my father used to make wine in a big barrel which would be brought out of the cave weeks before the wine ritual and left in the yard, filled with water, to our delight (among other games, we could bathe in it, on really hot days). it is a custom still alive now, when good wine is widely available.

i bought these from the market the other day. coming home, i had found the grapevine gone, it had gone dry, my mother said, there are blooming oleanders now in its place, their beauty as sweet and poisonous as every memory is, i said, oh why are you upset, my mother asked, don't you like the new look of the garden and the new light green paint on the walls of the house, and for no reason at all i remembered these lines:

see the world ripple beyond this current.

(I look at you with eyes of oleander)

& in this ocean

a single harp plays a taunting homage.

but i didn't say anything.

upon my tongue of now, this taste of then, forever - a taste of fog and, beyond that, the fragrance of the unspeakable, the silent tune of a single harp.

..

december chrysanthemums

The chrysanthemums
were yellow or white
until the frost.

Godō's death poem (1801)

Note on a note:

"Ladies moistened a bit of chrysanthemum-patterned brocade with dew from chrysanthemum flowers, rubbed their cheeks with it to smooth the wrinkles of age (since chrysanthemum dew conferred immortal youth), and composed poems lamenting the sorrows of growing old", says Royall Tyler in his notes on The Tale of Genji (which he translated into English).

(i am still searching for a chrysanthemum-patterned brocade to photograph it for the Bridge, against snow and delicate fingers, like faded petals themselves)




..

in the stale grandeur of annihilation

Weaker and weaker, the sunlight falls
In the afternoon. The proud and the strong
Have departed.

Those that are left are the unaccomplished,
The finally human,
Natives of a dwindled sphere.

Their indigence is an indigence
That is an indigence of the light,
A stellar pallor that hangs on the threads.

Little by little, the poverty
Of autumnal space becomes
A look, a few words spoken.

Each person completely touches us
With what he is and as he is,
In the stale grandeur of annihilation.


Wallace Stevens (Lebensweisheitspielerei)










.
.

sunset under the floating bridge (in homage to my adored Monet)

crossing this blue bridge of dreams,
my heart still untamed,
my hair still the bloodied reeds
which used to chain down time.
stopping. such stillness, suddenly
in this body heavy with countless autumns.
leaping. rings in the water neither reveal
nor hide anything. for a while,
until the world gets busy again,
as it never fails to do.
in this body of mine as well, though
i ask: whose body, now?

drowning within the setting sun.

..

to become the leaf, then

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.
.

two stories from other lives

J’ai deux histoires à te raconter.
Je sais que tu ne tarderas pas
à me tuer dans l’invisible.
Shéhérazade du geste révolu,
vaincue mais souriante.

Ecoute donc bien ce que j’ai à te dire.


Première histoire

C’était à l’époque des cours de jade. Parmi ceux qui s’attardaient dans le jardin presque désert, il y en eut un qui énonça tout d’un coup cette vérité :

En abandonnant les branches, les dernières feuilles deviennent les derniers pétales.
La mémoire caresse la mémoire.

La limpidité, voire la transparence de ce principe était telle que même la clarté des yeux des jeunes filles s’en troubla.
Jusqu’au jour où l’une d’entre elles se leva brusquement, dans le même jardin frappé par l’odeur du chrysanthème, déchira ses vêtements, défit ses longs cheveux noirs, proclama:

Les dernières feuilles, tout comme les premières feuilles, n’existent pas.
Les derniers pétales, tout comme les premiers pétales, n’existent pas.
La mémoire invente la mémoire.

Puis elle se donna la mort avec un petit couteau de nacre.
Les oiseaux de l’abandon descendirent alors en elle,
leurs grandes ailes déployées, immobiles,
le temps d’un instant.



Deuxième histoire

C’était à l’époque des grottes insouciantes. Assis devant leurs os et leurs coquilles, il en était qui, un soir, tentèrent l’aventure silencieuse de l’onde se refermant sur elle-même. Donner une forme à ce qui, au fond, remplissait depuis toujours chaque os et chaque coquille : le néant. Cependant, aucun bras ne bougeait.

Jusqu’au moment où une jeune fille se leva d’un bond et se mit à danser, les longues manches de sa robe envahissant l’espace. Hésitante, une main traça la silhouette de cette danseuse au corps blanc, aux seins nus, enveloppée dans ses brocarts comme dans un autre soi, plus léger. Elle dansait, somptueusement éloignée de la vie. Ses manches pourpres, déjà mêlées aux branches noires des arbres. Un autre trait de pinceau vint alors ajouter un petit bois à côté de la figure qui palpitait.

Ils pressentaient toutefois que cela demeurait bien loin de la forme parfaite du néant, puisque la fille dansait encore. Même si elle n’était déjà plus la fille.

Une main, soudainement, osa effacer le bois et mit à sa place le feu. Lorsque les dernières flammes s’éteignirent, de cet air encore mouvementé qui avait accueili jusque-là le corps de la danseuse, jaillit le temps écrasé.


J’ai une seule chose à demander, moi qui ai si peu à offrir. Dont les cheveux sont lourds de si peu de réalité. Moi qui n’ai pas de couteau de nacre, moi qui ne sait pas danser.

Ne couvre pas ton visage. Sois l’arbre noir, sois le feu.
Accepte.

Mon souffle, qui se précipite en toi.

Et du rêve encore tremblant qui aura, le temps d’un instant, accueilli ma forme inachevée, se lèvera peut-être, un jour, l’au-delà de la grâce.




Note: l’idéogramme 無 (non-existence, vide, rien, non, cesser d'exister) provient des anciens dessins tracés sur des os et des coquilles, qui représentaient à l’origine une figure en train de danser, se cachant derrière les longues manches de sa robe, à laquelle on a ajouté dans un premier temps l'élément 林, „forêt” (pour marquer l’idée de l’égarement, la disparition dans la forêt?). Il y a eu une forme intermèdiaire, les branches des arbres étant devenues les manches volantes de la danseuse. Cependant, la forêt a fini par être remplacée avec 火、灬, „le feu”. Les chercheurs développent encore les théories les plus compliquées pour retrouver le lien entre arbres, danse, feu, ne plus exister.

I have two stories to tell you.
I know it won’t be long until you kill me
in the invisible.
Scheherazade of the obsolete gesture,
defeated by dawn, smiling however,
turning still.

Hear me out, then, listen to what i have to tell you.


First story

It was at the time of the jade courts. Some, lingering in the garden, now almost empty. With the sudden glow of revelation, one uttered this truth:

Falling, the last leaves turn into the last petals.
Memory caresses memory.

The clarity, one could almost say the transparency of this eternal principle was such that even the clarity of the young girls’ eyes clouded.

Until the day one of them stood up with a sudden burst of grace, in the same garden where the scent of chrysanthemums was still floating, tore off her robes, let down her long dark hair, spoke thus:

The last leaves don’t exist, and neither do the first leaves.
The last petals don’t exist, and neither do the first petals.
Memory invents memory.

Then she took her life with a small mother-of-pearl dagger.
The birds of abandon fluttered down into her,
their crimson wings open and motionless.
The time of an instant.


Second story

It was at the time of the carefree caves. Crouching down in front of their bones and shells, some who wished for the silent adventure of the wave falling back unto itself. Who struggled to give shape to what had, in fact, always filled each bone and each shell: the non-existent. Yet no arm moved.

Until a young girl leapt forward, with the sudden fever of truth, and started dancing. Her long sleeves afloat, swallowing space. A hand fumbled to trace the silhouette of this dancer, her body moon white, her breasts bare, enfolded in her brocades as if in another self, a lighter one. She was dancing, sumptuously driven away from life. Her crimson sleeves swirling through the black branches, already one with the forest. Another brush stroke then added a small woods next to the trembling figure.

However they all sensed this still remained far away from the perfect shape of nothingness. As the girl’s dance hadn’t stopped. Even if she had already ceased to be that girl. A hand dared to erase the woods and drew a fire instead.

When the last flames burnt out, from this vibrating air which had until then enclosed the dancer’s body, gushed forth the vanquished time.


Only one thing i ask, i who has so little to offer. Who hides so little reality in her hair. I without a mother-of-pearl dagger, I who cannot dance.

Don’t cover your face. Be the black tree, be the fire.

Accept.

My breath, precipitated in you.

And from the dream, still trembling, which will have, for a moment, contained my unfinished form: another dawn will sometime rise, perhaps, its clarity unsurpassed.



Note: the ideogram 無 (nothingness, no, non-existence, void, cease to be) was originally at the time of the drawings on bones and shells, a dancing figure with long, concealing sleeves. The element "woods" 林, was later added (to express the idea of disappearing into a forest?). There existed an intermediate form in which the tasseled sleeves look very similar to trees. In the end, the woods was replaced with 火、灬, „fire”. Scholars still evolve complicated theories linking trees, dance, fire and cease to exist.