A Little Poetry for You: Chinese Book of Songs and a Moose

It's Poetry Friday! (and Friday the 13th, but we're trying to ignore that)

Liz has the round-up this week over at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy.

UPDATE: I'm adding a bonus poem today, one that just arrived in my email and struck me as incredibly beautiful. The poem is called "Moose in the Morning, Northern Maine," by Mona Van Duyn. Here's a small bit of it, the very bit that made me love the poem:

The world is warming and lightening
and mist on the pond
dissolves into bundles and ribbons.
At the end of my dock there comes clear,
bared by the gentle burning,
a monstrous hulk with thorny head,
up to his chest in the water,
mist wreathing round him.

Use this link to read the entire poem.


Here's my original PF post:

I don't have audio on this poem. But if you want to hear it, you could go out and rent the movie Crossing Delancey, which is how I know this poem. It is actually translated from the Chinese Book of Songs.

ripe plums are falling
now there are only five
may a fine lover come for me
while there is still time

ripe plums are falling
now there are only three
may a fine lover come for me
while there is still time

ripe plums are falling
i gather them in a shallow basket
may a fine lover come for me
tell me his name

Here's a brief write-up about this poem -- scroll to #17.

Here is a very different translation of the same poem -- scroll to #20.