Poetry Blog No 185 South Wind Companion

 

SOUTH WIND COMPANION 

 

This poem relates to the thought that beyond the conversation we can have with others, there is a "conversation", only apprehended in inner stillness , as it were, beyond the normal chatter of the mind, with the "flow" of the world itself. Often the wind has been felt to be like this "flow".

Here is a quote (Burton translation) from Chung Tzu ( an ancient Chinese Taoist ):

Tzu-ch'i said, "The Great Clod belches out breath and its name is wind. So long as it doesn't come forth, nothing happens. But when it does, then ten thousand hollows begin crying wildly. Can't you hear them, long drawn out? In the mountain forests that lash and sway, there are huge trees a hundred spans around with hollows and openings like noses, like mouths, like ears, like jugs, like cups, like mortars, like rifts, like ruts. They roar like waves, whistle like arrows, screech, gasp, cry, wail, moan, and howl, those in the lead calling out yeee!, those behind calling out yuuu! In a gentle breeze they answer faintly, but in a full gale the chorus is gigantic. And when the fierce wind has passed on, then all the hollows are empty again. Have you never seen the tossing and trembling that goes on?"

Tzu-yu said, "By the piping of earth, then, you mean simply [the sound of] these hollows, and by the piping of man [the sound of] flutes and whistles. But may I ask about the piping of Heaven?"

Tzu-ch'i said, "Blowing on the ten thousand things in a different way, so that each can be itself - all take what they want for themselves, but who does the sounding?

SOUTH WIND COMPANION

South wind brushing leaves in darkness,

Flying past moon’s mist-white face,

Cool companion of the lonely,

Wind, through trees, what do you whisper

To the solitude of night?

Wanderer through wide, sky-vastness,

Where the stars shine in high darkness,

With your sighs spun from tall trees,

Roaming wind, what do you murmur

Secretly to weary sense?

Wind, what secrets do you softly

Sing to those who do not find

Solicitude in human speech?

Roving wind, is there a meaning

In your leafy susurrations?

Yet there spins no normal sense

In soft-brushing syllables

Conjured from the darkened green.

What your words? No thought can say-

Only heart's own secret hearing.

Secret as the secret seeing,

Deep as depths of silent being,

Is your speech, to subtle sensing,

With your leaf-tongued sibilants,

Of the spirit of the world?

Is your soft, leaf-rustling call

As a flow that flows through all?