Waterfowl Tense: Moonlight, Tides and Su Causeway

/ Zi Wu

From December 6th to 9th, 2024, I was invited to attend the awarding ceremony of the 7th China Contemporary Poetry Awards in Hangzhou, where I was awarded the Poetry Criticism Prize.

The Moonlight Before Xu Zhimo’s Former Residence

The moonlight is drifting among us....

From a single heron to a lake or a stream

The moonlight tints this distance slightly yellow

The deep and lonely profile

The tip of the heron’s nose is covered with grass clippings

Yet lacking the melancholy of a stranger

The moonlight is drifting among us, when the egrets

Gather in the distance. The deep or light claw prints

Metasequoia glyptostroboides and red maples surround the yellow soil

The egrets’ fur is soft and grayish-white

With the luster of autumn

That group of herons are almost all purebred

With a number of about dozens to hundreds

In the moonlight, their calls are charming and moving

From the water’s edge and the foot of the mountain to the open area in the forest

Rivers from other places converge here

Under the moonlight of that night, after the egrets have disappeared

The rivers and forests return to tranquility

A pile of branches and leaves, a few feathers

We could no longer hear

The passionate and rough voice

The moonlight is drifting among us....

The Qiantang Tide, the Dive of Red-footed Falcons

A small, remote white dot, the red-footed falcon has just concentrated

A series of dull thunder rumbling, the waves are faster than wings

An overwhelming force crashing down from the horizon

Through autumn waters, the sky before the Flying Peak is filled with rosy clouds

Rows of white waves are whiter than flocks of gulls

Countless pairs of running feet and eyelids have experienced it

The majestic posture of water. When the river is red with fallen flowers, vigorous wings are gently fluttering

The willow catkins dance in the air for thirty miles

When the west wind rises, the strength of the waterfowl fades away

The elderly red-footed falcon, with its eyes wide open

The horizon is gradually blurring. Exclamations rising and falling

A beautiful arc — it plunges headfirst from mid-air

The not-so-glorious moment flashing by

The muddy waves rising high, the most impactful fairy scattering flowers

The tourists and waterfowls are captured as a scenery postcard

View the Su Causeway of the West Lake in a Vehicle After Visiting Zhejiang Academy of Arts

The eve of the 8th day of lunar November, the crescent moon appears in the south

On the lake gently rippling with waves, celestial music is drifting from Yingzhou

Against the balustrade of Wangshan Bridge, to gaze into the distance at the two peaks piercing the clouds

Suddenly, the sound of the zither in Dongpu can be heard, insects & birds listening in silence

When Sage Shun composes the “Great Shao”, the phoenix dancing to music

When Confucius plays the zither, the sage teacher of King Wen

Listens to the zither, realizing the sounds of the fall of King Zhou of Shang

The misty willows lingering over the Six Bridges; the sages and heroes are with books and swords

Boya listens to the sound of the sea, with a bosom wide like mountains running with water

Ji Kang is killed after performing “Guangling”, a piece of soul-stirring music

The zither master Dongpo, proficiency in a variety of ancient zithers

Adapting to the “Three Stanzas of the Sunny Pass”, fully exhibiting the poetic and scholarly atmosphere

In December, the Su Causeway is lush with grass & trees; yellow paulownia trees & red maple leaves

The winding path leads to a secluded place; the scenery is layered and bridges connect

Now the lake is still with few watchers; the moon is reflected in water

Birds flying, the lingering sound of the zither fades away

About the author:

Zi Wu, original name Xu Yanliang, male, born in February 1956 in Lianjiang, Guangdong Province, China. He has successively worked in education, secretarial work, as a review committee member, and as a professional writer, etc. He began publishing his works in the winter of 1979. As a poet, writer and cultural scholar, member of the Chinese Writers’ Association, the Chinese Film Association and the Chinese Drama Association, member of the organizing committee of the China Poetry Journey, and art advisor of the multi-language version of Rendition of International Poetry. He is the author of poetry collections, poetry criticism collections, aesthetic monographs, drama and film criticism collections, literary criticism collections, as well as novels, essays, songs, etc. He has edited many works, including Selected Poems of Contemporary Chinese Schools (co-edited by scholars from China, the UK, Canada, Mongolia and Japan). His works have been included in many important anthologies such as the Chinese-English-Russian editions of Selected Poems of Ten Contemporary Chinese Poets, and he has won over a hundred awards at home and abroad. Some of his works have been translated into English, German, Russian, Japanese, Korean and other languages.

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