Between 1821 and 1823, Beethoven wrote his last major work for the piano, the Diabelli Variations. He took a simple theme furnished by his publisher, and added 33 variations. A few months ago, in the middle of my life, and perhaps overly sensitive to my mortality, I challenged myself to learn this piece. I set…… Continue reading Writing About The Pengyang Memorial Inscription With Emotion (or ‘Triumph’)
The Qing dynasty scholar Wang Guowei wrote of poems falling into two categories: close by or remaining at a distance. The Chinese character he uses for distance is ge（隔）, whose ancient pictogram consists of three mounds, and a three legged urn. Shangyin’s poems often evoke a distance between the reader and the word, by referring…… Continue reading Song of the Inner Palace
I once dreamed Li Shangyin[1] was banished from court for speaking his mind. He fell into a deep depression. On a dark day, he went to an oracle and asked the soothsayer to examine the turtle bones and divine his future path. The oracle looked at Shangyin and said: “My son, what is it you…… Continue reading Thirty Rhymes Delivered To Tai Yuanlu and Si Kong
Mister Xie Fang Memorized and Recited My Poems , On a Random Day I Sent Him This Epistle After Shangyin read one of his poems to me, he calmly rested his chin on his hands and said, “We have Beowulf, The Bhagavad-Gita, , the Bayajidda, the Sorrow at Parting of Chu Yuan, but there is…… Continue reading Mr. Xie Fang Memorized and Recited My Poems
When I was younger, I regularly visited my father’s homestead in Kenya’s western Nyanza province. Green and wet hills wrapped voluptuously around the clusters of single-roomed thatched huts. The land was rich with oaks, figs, euphoria, sadry and blue gum trees. The baobab, known across Africa for its medicinal and life healing properties, called mirembe,…… Continue reading The Old Fieldhand
Two Pages Of 40 Verses For Li Gong In Return For His Painting Of The Pines A cool dew covers ten thousand plants1 I open the scroll to reveal the old pines Everywhere the mountains are covered with a sea of green How they grow on such peaks remains to be seen? Unaided, their lonely…… Continue reading Painting of the Pines
A Tang Poet From Nairobi 