Millets in full rows
Sorghum in sprouts
Long walk so slow
A heart all tossed
Those who know me say: He is distressed.
Those who do not know me say: What is he up to?
Under this easy, wide blue
What sort of man is he?
Millets in full rows
Sorghum in spikes
Long walk so slow
A heart all drunk
Those who know me say: He is distressed.
Those who do not know me say: What is he up to?
Under this easy, wide blue
What sort of man is he?
Millets in full rows
Sorghums in grains
Long walk so slow
A heart all blocked
Those who know me say: He is distressed.
Those who do not know me say: What is he up to?
Under this easy, wide blue
What sort of man is he?
Hello Friends —
For about as long as sorghum has been cycling from sprout to grain, the human heart has been tossing with how we are perceived by those around us — sometimes dependent upon how well they know us — and composing poems about it. You might say all of literature is just a centuries-long, slow walk humans take beneath the same vast sky to contemplate who we are and why we exist.
Sometime after 600 B.C., Confucius compiled a collection of 300 selections of ancient Chinese poetry known as Shin Ching or The Book of Songs. Many of the works in the collection are communal in origin and document the very invention and basis of poetry — the use of repetition, structure, patterns in language for the purpose of being easy to remember and pass on orally to others so that we could all contemplate our existence together.
The poem above is number 65 in the Shin Ching, also sometimes identified by various translations of the first line "Millets in full rows." This translation comes from Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres by the scholar Wai-Lim Yip, who is especially gifted and articulate about the process of translation.
In case you forgot, it's National Poetry Month all month! If a poem a day just isn't enough, you can find more poems, poets, and information about National Poetry Month at the website of the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org.
Love,
Ellen