Alone And Drinking Under The Moon
4 Comments Published by seserak on Friday, September 23, 2005 at 3:22 PM.
Amongst the flowers I am alone with my pot of wine drinking by myself; then lifting my cup I asked the moon to drink with me, its reflection and mine in the wine cup, just the three of us; then I sigh for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along with me never saying a word;with no other friends here, I can but use these two for company;in the time of happiness, I too must be happy with all around me; I sit and sing and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I dance, it is my shadow that dances along with me; while still not drunk, I am glad to make the moon and my shadow into friends, but then whenI have drunk too much, we all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on these who have no emotion whatsoever; I hope that one day we three will meet again, deep in the Milky Way.
By Li Po( Chinese Poet 701-762)
Translated by: Rewi Allen
For more of Li Po's poems go here: Selected Poems of Li Po
All of my friends have emotion. I cannot have friends who doesn't react to anything!!
Li Po was drunk when he wrote this poem.
I guess he was.
He is said to have a great love of liquor!
He's also said to wrote the best poem when he's drunk.
If I'm right about what this poem is talking about, then it's a great poem and very meaningful. But since it's translated and when I went to the site that you pointed out, there isn't any explaination or background about this poem at all, so I'm doubt if I got the meaning right. Do you mind sharing your thought what it is talking about?