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We went out for the first time in months on Friday night (yes, favourite aunt was visiting). Unfortunately, the clocks went back an hour this weekend and everyone’s gradually settling schedules were thrown into complete disarray. By the time we struggled through to her normal bedtime, dudelette had been through all-but falling asleep face down on her food and was well into her second wind.
It’ll probably be the last time Favourite Aunt will make it up this way before Christmas so who knows when we’ll see the inside of a restaurant again? Still, it’s not an uncommon predicament and not the least part of it is acquiring the motivation to go out at all. I’ve been working my way through The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry (I’ve also been reading a lot of Hammer’s Slammers military SF stories, ok?) and this piece by Mei Yao-Ch’en (1002-1060) in particular struck home. The translation is by Kenneth Roxroth.
Do not be offended because
I am slow to go out. You know
Me too well for that. On my lap
I hold my little girl. At my
Knees stands my handsome little son.
One has just begun to talk.
The other chatters without
Stopping. They hang on my clothes
And follow my every step.
I can’t get any further
Than the door. I am afraid
I will never make it to your house.
I think Mei Yao-Ch’en and I might have had a lot in common.
Hopefully I’ll spend more time catching up with everyone this week. The poem applies just as well to virtual visits!
Filed under: family, parenting, poetry | Tagged: children, literature, Mei Yao-Ch'en, parenthood, poetry
That is a delightful poem. I remember having that feeling – “I will never make it to your house” – for years. Now I see the inside of restaurants quite frequently and it is lovely. You will too!
That’s an amazingly accurate depiction!
I was just inspired last night by a magazine article about Gary Snyder…maybe I’ll see if the library has any of his work. He’s lived in the Sierras of California for so long — I love the imagery in his poems because it feels like home.
What a lovely poem. I remember those days of child hanging to one’s clothes, of being too slow to go out. Too quickly children grow beyond hanging on, and while there is a new found freedom for child and parent, it is bittersweet for the parent. (My handsome little boy just turned 20! Way too quickly!)
That poem is perfect.
Take heart, you WILL have childfree time one day.
But the thing is, yogamum, will we still want it? :) Already, time away is bittersweet as Cam says – I think it the idea of it was for Mei too who strikes me as a bit of a homebody. Henitsirk, Snyder is great – there’s a big thick Reader of his works, prose and poems, which I’d thoroughly recommend. Charlotte, we know! And hopefully with them in tow. But not always…
Oh I like that poem! And we are hermits too with a capital H :(
That is a lovely poem. It’s amazing to think that someone wrote such an apposite poem nearly a thousand years ago.
That’s what I love about so much ancient literature, especially from urban (or urbane) cultures like Sung/Tang China or Greece or Rome – it’s a sudden resonance of something in common with someone born thousands of years ago but just as human, just as caught up in the same things. Sometimes, to have not come very far is a good thing.
Me, too! Me, too! “it’s a sudden resonance of something in common with someone born thousands of years ago but just as human, just as caught up in the same things.” Exactly. Love it.
[...] Mei Yao-Ch’en (1002-1060). The translation is by Kenneth Roxroth. I found it on the blog of Unrelaxed Dad, who, with this post, reminds me why I so very often love reading his [...]