Earlier this week, the fields came to mind when I happened upon this:
Fragrant Grass
Fragrant grass, who knows who planted you,
Already spread in several clumps there by the terrace?
You have no mind to compete with the world --
What need is there for this deep rich green?
Wang An-shih (1021-1086) (translated by Burton Watson), in Kōjirō Yoshikawa, An Introduction to Sung Poetry (translated by Burton Watson) (Harvard University Press 1967), page 97.
John Nash (1893-1977), "Dorset Landscape" (c. 1930)
Today, as the sun descended toward the long dark silhouette of the distant mountain peaks, I watched a million bare twigs and branches turn to gold in the late afternoon light. At the end of my walk, a thin line of crimson clouds lay along the far horizon.
"Every one of those impressions is the impression of the individual in his isolation, each mind keeping as a solitary prisoner its own dream of a world." (Walter Pater, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (Macmillan 1893), page 249.) Well, yes, true. Nonetheless, the World is there. It is not a chimera. As Wang An-shih beautifully reminds us.
The green is always with us. And I grow fonder and fonder of the ever green World with each passing year. Where would we be without the green?
Happy New Year, dear readers, I wish you all the best.
John Nash, "A Path through Trees" (c. 1915)
