TO THE TUNE “MEI HUA YIN: PRELUDE OF PLUM BLOSSOMS”
Are you trapped here, the white gull asks me
while I moor my boat, or are you leaving behind your heart?
If your heart is left behind,
what keeps twisting your eyebrows like a lock?
Wind flaps the boat curtain, bending a wisp of fishing lamp.
Old days, old days, how have you left me—
pavilion beyond pear blossoms, canoe beneath wild willows.
I dream and dream and dream
and at the dream’s end—cold river runs emptily.
Clouds muddy, colossal.
Snow dampens my red cotton clothes.
The plum blossoms open in the exact shape of my sorrow.
蒋捷 Jiang Jie (1245–1305) was celebrated for the lightness of his language, his intricate musicality, and the invention of nuanced poetic phrases. In 1274, he achieved the jinshi degree, the highest honor in the imperial examination. Following the fall of the Southern Song, Jiang Jie refused to serve the Yuan court and vanished from public life. Renowned for his evocative line “The floating light of days, leaving us behind, reddens the cherries, greens the plantains,” he earned the title Jinshi of the Red Cherry.
方商羊 Shangyang Fang grew up in Chengdu, China. He is the author of Burying the Mountain.