Drunk Among Flowers
By Feng Yansi (Five Dynasties, 10th Century AD, China)
In the clear snow, the small garden has yet to see spring,
Yet by the pond, the plum blossoms have already bloomed early.
High in the trees, magpies carry twigs to build their nests,
While the slanting moon casts its light over the cold grass.
The mountains and rivers remain fair,
As they have along the ancient roads of Jinling.
The young who once gazed upon them have grown old.
When we meet, let us not tire of raising the golden cup,
For partings are many, and reunions are few.
It is March now, already spring, yet in Toronto, everything is still wrapped in ice and snow. And still, I can’t suppress the stirrings that the changing season brings.
I want to write you a letter, but I don’t know where to begin.
That day, when the heavy snow was falling, I already wanted to write you a letter.
I wanted to tell you about the swirling, drifting snowflakes, how it felt like a quiet little happiness to watch the snow from indoors. We could have gathered around the stove or stayed in the kitchen, baking pastries, drinking tea, chatting—or just doing something, anything.
And now, it is still snowing, but everything is different. Even the vast expanse of white can no longer stop the green from quietly spreading across the earth. I think I am ready, to embrace, fully and deeply, those unexpected miracles, if they exist.
I hope you still love spring.
It feels like a long time has passed since then. We always say, “One day, we will meet again…” But life moves back and forth, people come and go - have we grown old? Older than ever before?
In certain quiet moments, I can’t help but check my phone over and over again, yet no messages ever come.
Everyone is caught up in their own lives, doing what we are supposed to do.
Sometimes, I feel like we are just train cars on the subway, moving along a fixed track, stopping, departing, stopping, departing, always heading somewhere, yet never quite arriving.
Today is March 1st. A light snowfall drifted down in the morning, landing on the windowsill, only to melt away soon after.
I stood by the window, imagining it as the fine spring rain of my hometown.
My home is in southern China, in a subtropical mountain region. By March, light rains have already begun to fall there from time to time.
Early spring, pale yellow, endless rain, flickering between light and shadow. In the distance, faint wisps of wild mist rise over the mountains. The tea farmers have already begun their harvest, and one after another, the flowering event of spring are unfolding…
Suddenly, I feel a slight pang of unease. After so many days spent working, riding the subway, suffocating in the smog of the city’s daily commute, I am struck by a feeling as if I have been displaced in time, as if life has been wasted, as if I have never truly loved this world …
Sometimes, I feel that the poet Feng Yansi, who lived in 10th-century China, was luckier than we are. At least back then, the clamor of technology was still far away, and all things humbly lay close to the earth, so that people could clearly see their place between heaven and earth.
After the snow had cleared and the sky turned bright, he took a walk in the garden, just as we might go outside for a stroll after a meal.
The morning sunlight fell on the snow, the air was still, and he felt a quiet clarity in his heart.
It was still early when he stepped outside, and the air was cold. A slanting moon, like a trace blurred by tears, hung over the deep, shadowed garden. He walked lightly, simply unwilling to wake the flowers and trees.
Suddenly, he saw a plum blossom blooming by the pond, opening before spring had arrived. The vivid red stood out even more brightly against the white snow, like a faint glow kindled on a winter morning. The air after the snowfall remained cold, carrying a crisp, piercing freshness. Yet, the scent of plum blossoms had already begun to drift, an exceedingly light, subtle fragrance, like the faint trace of ink slightly moistened with water, elusive yet impossible to ignore. A thin layer of snow still clung to the branches, while higher up in the tree, a bird carried a withered twig, weaving through the branches as if mending an old nest.
He suddenly thought of a person’s life, of how spring returns again and again, coming back to this very place. The young will slowly grow old, just like us.
The tides of history and the course of a human life unfold against such a backdrop, seeming so important, yet, at the same time, as if they mean nothing at all.
He must have wanted to read something from them，or perhaps our growth, our lives, our sorrows.
It’s strange, when I haven’t seen you, I have so much I want to tell you. But when I stand before you, I always have nothing to say.
I take this poem by Feng Yansi as a letter of spring, as the letter I am writing to you.
In fact, this is his letter too, a letter he wrote to time, to the long journey of life. I wonder, when he wrote it, did he also feel that there was nothing to say? And yet, he said it best.
Just a few short lines, and they take us away from the clamor of the world, awakening us once more through all things. Those seemingly insignificant moments, the first spring rain, a few morning birds crying softly in the woods, the warmth of the road after being drenched and then dried by the sun… Only in long, slow-moving sentences do they open up to us, revealing that hidden, unhurried, and quietly wasted world.
“When we meet, let us not tire of raising the golden cup, For partings are many, and reunions are few.”
I think of that March, when we got lost in a small mountain within the city (Chongqing is a mountain city in China) and unexpectedly came across a teahouse hidden in the hills. So we stayed there and spent the entire afternoon. We were listening to the rain falling on the eaves, the air filled with the light aroma of tea, moss spreading outside the window. The surroundings were damp and glistening with moisture, yet we huddled together in that small, dry space, speaking freely from the heart. How could it not bring comfort?
Wine and tea may not be the same, but Feng Yansi has already spoken for me. The chances for us to meet in this lifetime are few and far between. No sooner do we reunite than we part again. How could we not treasure it?
Spring has arrived. Will you think of me?
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