Ten Odes on Tea Utensils: Tea Vale White Lotus
- Poetry of Lu Guimeng
Winding paths through the tea ground curve and bend,
Where wild trails through the lush foliage extend.
Denser where they face the sun's warm light,
Sparser by the back stream, hidden from sight.
Slowly coiling like cloud-like locks overhead,
Clustered like small scent mounds where fragrances spread.
Where to find this secluded rendezvous?
Dawn's spring dew graces the rocks with pearls anew.
This poem is part of a series exchanged between Lu Guimeng and his close friend Pi Rixiu (courtesy name Pimei). Both were representatives of the "late Tang recluse tradition," often composing poems on tea, landscapes, and pastoral life to express their feelings. The series Ten Odes on Tea Utensils takes tea-related tools and settings—such as tea gardens, tea cauldrons, tea stoves, tea rollers, and tea mortars—as themes, celebrating each both as objects and as vehicles for personal expression. This piece, "Tea Garden," focuses on the terrain where tea is cultivated, depicting the environment and atmosphere of tea mountains and fields. Living in the Jiangnan countryside and often engaged in tea-related activities, Lu was deeply familiar with tea gardens, resulting in a vivid and detailed portrayal filled with the leisurely spirit of reclusion.
茗地曲隈回，野行多缭绕。
向阳就中密，背涧差还少。
遥盘云髻慢，乱簇香篝小。
何处好幽期，满岩春露晓。
- Why Chinese poems is so special?
- The most distinctive features of Chinese poetry are: concision- many poems are only four lines, and few are much longer than eight; ambiguity- number, tense and parts of speech are often undetermined, creating particularly rich interpretative possibilities; and structure- most poems follow quite strict formal patterns which have beauty in themselves as well as highlighting meaningful contrasts.
- How to read a Chinese poem?
- Like an English poem, but more so. Everything is there for a reason, so try to find that reason. Think about all the possible connotations, and be aware of the different possibilities of number and tense. Look for contrasts: within lines, between the lines of each couplet and between successive couplets. Above all, don't worry about what the poet meant- find your meaning.