Birthday poem · May 8Start of Summer, the 7th solar term: summer begins.
Birth character
樹 shù · tree
樹 first meant to plant; it came to mean a tree.
碧玉妝成一樹高
“The slender beauty's dressed in emerald all about” — He Zhizhang, ‘Ode to the Willow’
The poem
“On the Road to Xincheng” 新城道中
- 東風知我欲山行The east wind knows I mean to walk in the hills,
- 吹斷檐間積雨聲and stops the sound of the long rain dripping from the eaves.
- 嶺上晴雲披絮帽On the ridge, clear clouds wear a cap of cotton;
- 樹頭初日掛銅鉦at the treetops the early sun hangs like a bronze gong.
Why this poem
Su Shi on a mountain walk as the weather clears: a cloud like a cap, the sun like a gong.
This day in the Chinese calendar
Solar term: Start of Summer.