ripe plums are falling
now there are only five
may a fine lover come for me
while there is still time
ripe plums are falling
now there are only three
may a fine lover come for me
while there is still time
ripe plums are falling
I gather them in a shallow basket
may a fine lover come for me
tell me his name
- Chinese Book of Songs
Here is a poem sung to the measured rhythms of harvest where plums drop one by one from the vines of birth until, at the last, each as died, full of age and days of youth. So then is a young lover's wistfulness spent upon the measures of the day wooing the plums, the trees, the air, to tell her where she might find her lover. A love which aches in her heart ripened to the point of being tasted, eaten, devoured, until heart and soul are betrothed in time and being and satisfaction. But with each passing youthful wist wished upon the hands of time the young lover's aching prayer is not answered. The lover's name not known. And there, alone, heaves the lover's broken, heavy heart torn in the throes of love with none to love but only whispers upon the wind settling upon the dying echoes of day's dusks. And as night falls so does love's hopes and dreams spent of wasted passion withered upon the vine with none to love in the imaginations of the heart broken of hope and dream. - r.e. slater
References
China's Song Dynasty - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_dynasty
Dr. Robert Churchill's Handbook for the Study of Easter Literatures: Book of Songs -
The Odes of Confucious -
Crossing Delancey: Ripe Plums Are Falling
One of the five Confucian classics, The Book of Songs (Shijing) is the oldest collection of poetry in world literature and the finest treasure of traditional songs left from antiquity. Where the other Confucian classics treat “outward things: deeds, moral precepts, the way the world works,” as Stephen Owen tells us in his foreword, The Book of Songs is “the classic of the human heart and the human mind.” - Amazon Book Description
