Peach Blossom River
Frustrated verse by Russell Streur
for CKC
1
Wine gone the high music fades
Looking west a silver path on water
I watch the moon sink into endless waves
Your voice settling in my bones.
2
Too young to know better
We part in reckless autumn wind
Falling leaves on No Name Bluff
But my heart will never wander from this place.
3
The snow begins this afternoon
Then heavier at dusk.
All night the wind clatters on my shutters
Until morning, and numb white silence.
4
Lost to the world in North Woods
I sleep an unhappy ghost in kettle and oak
Never hearing in the hoots of saw whet owls
Far to the south, your thoughts of me.
5
No accident the gusting wind
Then lightning in the west
How suddenly we find each other again
Twenty years later, when spring comes.
6
Later as you sleep the sky clears
And your robe slips off your right shoulder.
I cup a thousand years of beauty in my palm
The bright moonlight spilling on your breast.
7
A moment or two in midstream
Our hearts are joined again
Peach blossoms drifting with the current
Past blue hills, and summer wheat.
8
It is cold enough tonight to light a fire
But I keep my bedroom windows open wide
Even in August heat I shiver
Without you to share my quilt.
9
Drinking on my porch alone tonight
Sounds of only wind in poplar trees
And morning rain still dripping from the eaves
I listen for your footsteps, then leave the door unlatched.
10
Too late to buy more wine
Clouds fill the sky
Without a New Year’s moon to light the trail
We lose our way in tangled wood.
11
Green waves crash on black rocks
White foam leaps into gray sky
Our footprints fade in blowing sand and rain
Until there’s no one here.
12
Disembodied by the sun on Oconee
We linger now forever on this shore
Blue phantoms in the wood smoke
Whispering through dark pines last night.
13
Laughter spills from the gambling house tonight
As if all of heaven’s jade amounts to nothing more
Than a lantern’s shadow on a fleeting path.
The moonlight and the northern wind my only wealth
I bet these wishing coins against a million stars
Double or nothing, to wake once more with you.
14
The dumbest of gulls
Had sense enough last night
To flee this coast and storm,
The crows were gone by yesterday noon.
Not me: in the shelter of a single pine
That was not even here when we parted first
I wait again for you above unending waves
An hour in pouring rain, then forever still.
Author’s note: The story of Peach Blossom River dates back at least 1700 years ago or so in both Chinese poetic and Taoistic lore. The short version is that Peach Blossom River is the place of paradise that an individual discovers once in a lifetime, and if ever left, can never be found again. There’s no good version of the story that I know of on the web; it’s obscure to a degree, but this link has the basic outline.
The form of four lines is from the classical Chinese tradition known as jue ju (frustrated verse, according to one translation) which is meant not so much as to tell a story as to create a mood, with the minimum amount of syllables employed, as described here.
I take liberty with the four lines in 13 and 14, because there’s 12 bars in the blues you know, and once you get past 12, you can solo, so I did 6 and 8 for fun like jazz might happen. And why 14 stanzas? An adherence to the western structure of the sonnet.
