Birthday poem · September 8White Dew, the 15th solar term: nights cool and dew forms on the grass.

Birthday poem card for September 8: “The Old Fisherman” by Liu Zongyuan. Birth character 竹, bamboo.

Birth character

竹 zhú · bamboo

竹 is a picture of bamboo stems with hanging leaves.

竹杖芒鞋輕勝馬
“A bamboo staff and straw sandals, lighter than a horse” — Su Shi, ‘Calming the Waves’

Other dates with this poem: December 20

The poem

“The Old Fisherman” 漁翁

  1. 漁翁夜傍西巖宿The old fisherman sleeps by the western cliff at night;
  2. 曉汲清湘燃楚竹at dawn he draws water from the clear Xiang and burns Chu bamboo.
  3. 煙銷日出不見人The mist melts, the sun comes out, and no one is in sight —
  4. 欸乃一聲山水綠one creak of the oar, and hills and water turn green.

Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元 · Tang dynasty · 773–819 · seven-character verse · excerpt

English translation by Poetune.

Why this poem

Liu Zongyuan on a fisherman at dawn on the Xiang River.

This day in the Chinese calendar

Solar term: White Dew.

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