Reflections at Mid Autumn Festival
263d 3h ago | Nanluoguxiang
Sitting in a traditional Chinese siheyuan (courtyard house) in the Nanluoguxiang hutong its like the coin has finally dropped. Perhaps it is the environment: a beautiful old courtyard, a full moon shining down brilliantly. Perhaps it is my current circumstances: sitting reminiscing with an old friend from home who has been visiting China for a couple of weeks and will return to the US tomorrow. More than ever I can understand the reason for the moon festival; I can understand a family gathering together to look at the moon. This moon, this setting, brings to mind my loved ones far away. I suddenly feel inspired to write about the moon like the poets of old.
I try a few lines, attempting to convey to my friend some of the ideas the poets had though with none of their elegance;
Under the moon
That shines equally on me,
On you so far away,
I sit,
Drunk with longing for the sight of home.
I envy the moon her view
Later, I wake up in the early hours before dawn to see my friend to her taxi. She must depart at such an odd hour as her flight will leave the capital at dawn. I had thought I'd return to my warm bed but I am entranced by the moonlight and the stars (how can so many be seen here in modern Beijing?!?); the big sky around me bounded only the the walls of this siheyuan.
Tears come to my eyes and I am weeping that I have, once again, said goodbye. It is a luxury I don't often allow myself in the international life I have lived for the better part of the last decade: to express even a little of the pain of separation seems to make it overwhelming; usually I hold back. Perhaps it is the moon, the ancient tales of the lovers, long separated who can only meet once a year, but I let myself cry this once.
I think again of the poets.
Suddenly, the words of Li Bai are alive to me:
Thoughts in the Still of the Night
Before my bed so bright a moon gleams
At first I suspect a layer of frost has covered the ground
I lift my head to look upon the full moon
Then lower it filled with thoughts of home
Quietly, to myself, I craft my own lines:
Autumn chill drives me to envelope myself in fleece,
To imbibe the heat of coffee,
As I remember, for once, what was
As I hope, for once, for it to be again
The moon will wane and , so too this urgent need,
I hope
Or it will undo me.
I try a few lines, attempting to convey to my friend some of the ideas the poets had though with none of their elegance;
Under the moon
That shines equally on me,
On you so far away,
I sit,
Drunk with longing for the sight of home.
I envy the moon her view
Later, I wake up in the early hours before dawn to see my friend to her taxi. She must depart at such an odd hour as her flight will leave the capital at dawn. I had thought I'd return to my warm bed but I am entranced by the moonlight and the stars (how can so many be seen here in modern Beijing?!?); the big sky around me bounded only the the walls of this siheyuan.
Tears come to my eyes and I am weeping that I have, once again, said goodbye. It is a luxury I don't often allow myself in the international life I have lived for the better part of the last decade: to express even a little of the pain of separation seems to make it overwhelming; usually I hold back. Perhaps it is the moon, the ancient tales of the lovers, long separated who can only meet once a year, but I let myself cry this once.
I think again of the poets.
Suddenly, the words of Li Bai are alive to me:
Thoughts in the Still of the Night
Before my bed so bright a moon gleams
At first I suspect a layer of frost has covered the ground
I lift my head to look upon the full moon
Then lower it filled with thoughts of home
Quietly, to myself, I craft my own lines:
Autumn chill drives me to envelope myself in fleece,
To imbibe the heat of coffee,
As I remember, for once, what was
As I hope, for once, for it to be again
The moon will wane and , so too this urgent need,
I hope
Or it will undo me.
