Clearing at Dawn

Featured in

Buy $27.99
  • Published 20140204
  • ISBN: 9781922182241
  • Extent: 300 pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook
Ya

A Clear Dawn
Li Po
The bush is cool, the light showers have stopped – a panorama of
Spring.
The clear waters boil with leaping trout; birds chirp, the fern fronds droop.
The bush flowers dapple their dewy petals; the hill tussocks give a
crisp salute.
Above the cabbage tree and creek, wisps of cloud gently scatter in the wind.
(translation Ya-Wen Ho)
 
Clearing at Dawn
Li Po
The fields are chill, the sparse rain has stopped;
The colours of Spring teem on every side.
With leaping fish the blue pond is full;
With singing thrushes the green boughs droop.
The flowers of the field have dabbled their powdered cheeks;
The mountain grasses are bent level at the waist.
By the bamboo stream the last fragment of cloud
Blown by the wind slowly scatters away.
(translation Arthur Waley)
 
 
Ya-Wen Ho’s essay, ‘Poetry as social experiment’, can be read in the e-book Pacific Highways: Volume 2, available free at www.griffithreview.com

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

Tweet
Share
Share
Pin
0 Shares

Subscribe to great writing

Access starts at just $6 per month. Print and digital options to suit every budget!

Learn more

About the author

Ya-Wen Ho

Ya-Wen Ho is a twenty-six-year-old poet who came to New Zealand from Taiwan at the age of seven. She is a graduate of the...

More from this edition

Crime scenes

GR OnlineRANGIORA IS A small (population around twelve thousand) country town twenty-five kilometres north of Christchurch. It has an interesting town hall, which was damaged...

School report

EssayLAST WEEKEND, IN a bid to compress a wet Sunday, I drove my two young boys out to the seaside suburb where I'd lived...

The beach

MemoirA SWEEP OF reef, two dashing freshwater rivers and a towering mountain, the bay of Apia, on the north coast of the island of...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.