Thank you
I was planning to
Read the poem I prepared for you
At five thirty-five the time the moon rises
It seems that we had passed the time
But I think the moon is rising now
Then I shall read this poem at the time of moon rise
the time when the moon is most beautiful and fullest
In the year
I shall read this poem to you
At the time of moon rise
I be the Rhododendrons that cover the mountains
Just for a spring of no regret
I be the stars
Offered to a summer night
I be the numerous rivers
Flowing toward the one and only ocean
I be the moon
once again illuminated, for you
If you are the island
I be the ocean that embraces you
If you set sail
I be the breezing waves
If you go on a voyage
I be the road
Arranged with smoothness
Follow you to afar
When you are tired from walking
I be the night
The lodging on the side of the road
With clean bed sheets
For you to sleep on
There are dreams in your sleep
I be the tear stain on your pillow
I be the arm that you grab on
even your hair turned grey
I be the furnace fire by your foot
Converse the memories of old age with you
You are laughter
I am the song that echos
You are tears
I am the starlight that follows
When you are buried
I be the grass that accompanies you
you turned ashes
I be the dust
If, if only you still feel attached to this life
I pray another wish
To be with you in the next life
This is a poem
That should be read at the time of moon rise
Once at a full moon night at Tidaan on the East coast
I read this poem with several students
I don’t know why
I love reading and writing poems since I was young
But until today
Including just now
When I read poems
I still feel a kind of guilt
I think that guilt is
I don’t know what role poetry plays in this world
If there is war everywhere
If there is famine everywhere
If there is hate and murder between people everywhere
Then what could a poem save
I keep doubting what I do
When I knew that I had 18 minutes
To share the night of mid-autumn festival with some friends
I was wondering could people save 18 minutes
From a day of 24 hours for one poem
Then I thought it might still be a lavish
If I tell a friend in the work place who is busy all the time
To save 18 minutes for a poem everyday
I think he or she will still protest
So I concede
perhaps poetry is always conceding
Because it is unable to fight against anything
In the real world
So it concedes
So my compromise is that
Could we save 18 minutes for one poem
In an year of 365 days
And then I thought I concede again
Could it be 18 minutes for one poem
In a life time
Merely 18 minutes
But I think that’s enough
If you remember in that 18 minutes
You once saw in a spring
mountains devoured by the redness of Rhododendrons
I used to go there with my students often
it started in March or even February
The Rhododendrons of Yangmingshan
The whole mountain is red
There is another place that is very beautiful during May
The north face of Hehuanshan
It has Rhododendron rubropilosum Hayata
You can see the red mountain ridge
for several hundred meters long
My students often use lines
that I could never thought of to describe
He said, wow
The mountain is spitting blood
I couldn’t write something like that
I think the sentence is awesome
I believe there must be something in life
That could make him live with no regret
It is something like that which is crumbling and bleeding
There is an ancient story called The Cry of The Cuckoo
There was a lingering ghost of an emperor
it turns into a cuckoo bird
And it keeps on crying and crying
In the end the bird spat out blood
and dyed all the white flowers red
This is the story of the origin of Rhododendron
I always remember the spring Rhododendron
I witnessed several times on this island
I also once witnessed numerous rivers flowing downward
From the high point of this island
I lived in Dalongdong when I was young
It is on the shore of Tamsui River
We used to play in the Tamsui
But I knew along Tamsui
there is Dadaocheng above Dalongdong
Monga and Wanhua above Dadaocheng
Xindian Creek above Monga
And Beishi River above Xindian Creek
From the upper course going downwards
The river flows through a city
Now I live at its estuary at Bali
As if my life had come to the lower course too
But I think one’s life at the estuary
Has its own breadth
A river flows downward from a trickling creek
Passing Beishi River, Xindian Creek, Monga,
Dadaochen, Dalongdong and Shezi until the ocean
I believe the river has its own memory
So in the poem I read to you
There could be a Rhododendron bloomed in spring
Bloomed with no regret
Once there were numerous rivers
that flowed toward the one and only ocean
Once on Jibei Island of Penghu
The sands on the beach of Jibei is all white
Sands from eroded shells
On a night of full moon
When the moon is low
before dawn
When it’s almost dawn
All the stars shine in the sky
The student will grab you and yell
He didn’t talk about spitting blood this time
He couldn’t find any words
So he wept
I like seeing students weep
Because I believe they saw poetry
They will remember there were 18 minutes in their lives
Maybe it’s on the north face of Hehuanshan
Maybe it’s at the beach of Jibei
similarly
900 years ago there was a poet at this night wrote
When will the moon be clear and bright?
I asked the sky with a cup of wine in hand
Wonder what year it is in the palaces of heaven tonight
He is asking the moon
He wants to return to his home in heaven
We are too familiar with Su Dongpo’s Shui Diao Ge Tou
In the last part of the poem he says
There are different phases of moon
As there are different emotions of life
When I read this in high school textbook
Suddenly I realize
If a culture, a nation desires completeness so strongly
On 15th of January of the lunar calendar
is Yuanxiao Festival, Shangyuan Festival
The desire of roundness
On 15th of July there is the mid-summer ghost festival
You release water lanterns
To summon the stray spirits back
To share the warmth of the human world
And the mid-autumn festival
It is the time when the moon is complete and brightest in the year
I suddenly realized the desire of completeness
In Su Dongpo’s poem
When he wrote there are different phases of moon
It is only then I realize our desire for completeness
is because there are too much fragmentary
There are numerous fragmentary in our lives
We desire its completeness someday
I remember when I was young, the dining table we used was round
Once a French writer asked me in Paris
She studies comparative literature
Julia Christopher
She asked me
Why all your tables are round
She just got back from Asia at that time
I never thought of this question
I always thought that tables are round
But of course in Paris
the tables are mostly squares or rectangles
Rarely round
Then I realize roundness is a culture’s
Fight against fragmentary and incompleteness
It desires completeness so much
Even it’s transient, even it’s only 18 minutes
It still fights against fragmentary and incompleteness
in this mere 18 minutes
Too many conflicts
Too many wars
Too many exiles
The culture appreciates the desire of roundness
Anticipates the completeness
I think what we just mentioned about
The blooming of flower and the complete of moon
Is easily mocked as overly romantic
I think we actually have a kind of fear of poetry
The fear is to fall into a world of delusion
But I don’t agree
Poetry soothed numerous hearts in ordeal
As Ping Chu just explained the word compassion
I believe love is to share joy
And pain together
That’s why it is resonated across different cultures
What we meant by poetry could be the content I just read
But in literature we believe
Poetry is not just putting different words
together to convey certain meanings
In most early cultures
Poetry is not written down by words or seen by eyes
It is said by language and heard by the ears
Homer and Greek epics
Is sung with instruments
Mahabharata and Ramayana of India
Can be sung endlessly with 80 thousand lines
China’s classic of poetry is sung by illiterate men and women
That plow the land singing
The birds sing in the sand bar
It is more recent when it is organized into writing
We forgot how old our language is
We forgot our language
was once vibrations of love in the air
In the ancient times
I left at a time when the Salicaceae are green
Now I return at the time of rain and snow
The poem must be sung
For the people that is illiterate to hear the 16 words
To be moved by the heart
Therefore, what is called poetry by a nation
All started from sound rather than vision
It is aural
Because hearing is more connected to the heart than vision
There are so many bridges on the river of Seine
Every time I pass a bridge called Mirabeau
It reminds me of Apollinaire
A poet that writes in French in the early 20th century
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine Under the Mirabeau bridge flows the Seine
Et nos amours And our loves
Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne Must I remember them
It doesn’t really matter if we know this language or not
Because its beau amours seine sienne vienne
Is all rhyming
Rhyme pattern ABAB
So the poem sounds like a kind of music or a certain sound
We are moved by it
When i was reading
I used the “eng” poetic foot
We dont need to know what the “eng” poetic foot is
Its simply the words
That rhyme with the sound “eng”
The « tung » word in tung fang (the east)
The other « tung » word we use to describe the sound of drum
It is a resonant sound
And there is another «chiang yang» (the « ang ») poetic foot
The « yang » word in hai yang (the ocean)
The « t’ang » word in t’ang huang (splendorous)
Are all rhyming with « ang »
« ang » poetic foot t’ang t’ang huang huang
It resonates the most
We call it the k’ai k’ou (mouth wide) rhyming
Because the sound vibrates most strongly
The « eng » and « ang » poetic foot
Are a little bit similar to
the metal and drum sound in musical instruments
So one often unconsciously integrates the texture of sound
Into the poem in the process of writing
I always thought that a lot of early folk songs
used the « i » poetic foot
Also called the « ch’i wei » poetic foot
The « bî » in « hong bî bî» (breeze in Taiwanese)
U can feel the « i » poetic foot
In the language we use today
« i » poetic foot
Such as « li » in « li pieh » (parting)
« chi » in « chi mo » (lonely)
« ch’i » in « ch’i liang » (miserable)
All rhymes with « i »
Because it is « pi k’ou » (mouth closed) rhyming
It sounds particularly sad
Because it is not a wide encompassing sound
So while these poems are conveying meaning,
they are also conveying the texture of sound
The texture of the « i » rhyming prompts the early migrants
To sing out certain sounds
In the feeling of desolate and loneliness
« sù a hsiang a khí» (remembering)
In the sound conveyed
Are plenty of « i » poetic foot
A lot of them
So we may see
If poetry today only offers vision
We will miss a lot of things
We will miss the vibration in the air
Love and compassion
Poetry needs to vibrate in the air
We don’t necessarily comprehend it through vision
But actually though the resonance of heart
The sound is like waves of tide
of energy
So if it’s possible
Can we save 18 minutes in a day for one poem
Can we save 18 minutes in a year for one poem
Can we at least save 18 minutes in a life time for one poem
Perhaps poetry is the final redemption
The final redemption of life
If we don’t even have this 18 minutes
That is such a desolate life
So bleak
At least in that sound
We can hear the sound of moon rise
Hear the sound of flower blooming
Hear the sound of river
Flowing away
If this 18 minutes can be a gift
To many friends in this world
Especially today
Sometimes I thought of Syria, Libya
Thought of Afghanistan and Iraq
I believe they need poetry
If there is 18 minutes of poetry
You will realize how extravagant this life is
Because at the time of calamity and pain
We drive poetry away
And discredit the value and meaning of the existence of it
At this night of the year when the moon is the fullest
I still want to read this poem to you
As a gift for today
And I believe you can feel
The « ang » and « eng » rhyming in the sound
«chung tung» and «chiang yang»
We often hear about the pentatonic scale
kung (mi), shang(so), chueh(la), chih(do), yu(re) in ancient music
Kung rhymes with « eng »
Shang rhymes with « ang »
Yu is « i » poetic foot
So at the Kiyomizu-dera in Japan
There is a really thin waterfall
We call it the Yu Yin Shuang (the yu sound fall)
The yu sound is the smallest sound
The slightest sound
The Shuang word is written as the word « lung» for dragon
with the radical water on the left
Some people pronounce the word as « lung »
But it’s actually « Shuang»
Yu Yin Shuang
Means the smallest sound
The highest pitch on the violin is also the yu sound
The kung and shang sound are relatively broad
Taiwan is a really small island
I remember when I was young
my father had a Taiwan map in our house
A lot of people said that Taiwan looks like a yam
But I always thought that it looks like an infant
Because when I was still young, infants are bind up by cloth
into a long oval shape
And I thought the ocean is like a mother embracing it
So I will read this poem again
Maybe you can feel
The opportunity to have such a profound dialogue with an island
Or a profound dialogue with the ocean surrounding it
I be the Rhododendrons that cover the mountains
Just for a spring of no regret
I be the stars
Offered to a summer night
I be the numerous rivers
Flowing toward the one and only ocean
I be the moon
once again illuminated, for you
If you are the island
I be the ocean that embraces you
If you set sail
I be the breezing waves
If you go on a voyage
I be the road
Arranged with smoothness
Follow you to afar
When you are tired from walking
I be the night
The lodging on the side of the road
With clean bed sheets
For you to sleep on
There are dreams in your sleep
I be the tear stain on your pillow
I be the arm that you grab on
even your hair turned grey
I be the furnace fire by your foot
Converse the memories of old age with you
You are laughter
I am the song that echoes
You are tears
I am the starlight that follows
When you are buried
I be the grass that accompanies you
When you turned into ashes
I be the dust
If, if only you still feel attached to this life
I will pray once more
To be with you in the next life
Thank you