Whispers of Su Dongpo in Bamboo Sway
The knocking of the bamboo
In the wind
Restores my awareness.
Su Dongpo said he could live
Without meat but not without bamboo.
Bamboo brings life, of course,
As meat destroys it, but
Dongpo had a different
Understanding (he loved eating meat),
Yet his words weave
Through the leaves
With warning and assurance
Of life whose end has not
Arrived so long as bamboo
Sways her promise to us.
Randy Horton
Thu 18th Jul 2019 06:58
Thanks, Martin. I love bamboo and made a pretty challenging trip to a bamboo forest in China. It was challenging because I had to navigate multiple forms of transportation with very limited communication skills. I knew a tiny bit of Mandarin, but the dialect was completely different in the south. It was worth it, though. A friend in China told me about Su Dongpo because of the shared interest in bamboo.