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Dedicated to Wang Wei

(Picture: DS)

(14.8.2022) ›Cherry valley‹ is the name of the valley. Although few cherry trees are left here, and the geography to which the name is still referring to is not quite clear, since I am amidst a forest. Deers live here (occasionally seen), human voices are heard every now and then, but at the moment, it is in the middle of August, late in summer, a soft wind can be heard, not yet fresh, but mildly refreshing regarding the current heatwave which has been causing a drought. A street runs downwards, cutting through the partly rather dense forest, a very quiet street, along a ditch which is secured by stone walls. Water from the hill, if there is some, is being collected here and in a reservoir, which is placed at the bottom of the hill. The forestry management facility is placed somewhat more uphill at this very street.

(Picture: DS)

About a month ago, in July, on my way home, I had noticed here the phenomenon that Tang dynasty poet Wang Wei had immortalized 1200 years ago: rays of sunlight, piercing through the dense wood, intensely lighting a single patch of green moss, as if indicating a treasure, and evoking a certain poetic kind of magic.
Having noticed the magical effect I almost immediately thought of the poem by Wang Wei which, as many people probably do, I know through the booklet by Eliot Weinberger, who collected and commented upon translations of this very poem. It is called Deer Fence (in the 1971 translation by Barton Watson), and did speak, in this indirect way, but still, to me and in that very moment, so that, for about a month, I have been thinking about a couple of things.
About how literature, poetry, written 1200 years ago, is being able, to light a certain experience in daily life (returning home, becoming aware of a certain phenomenon in nature), given that there are transmitters (like Eliot Weinberger, and the many translators to which the poem had been speaking as well). And about how writing about this very experience – in writing, by writing and while writing – it is becoming more clear, more rich, as vague thoughts are taking shape and associations are built.

The phenomenon in nature, has its parallel in language. It is being named, and only then, possibly, seen. But how is this phenomenon understood? To see this we have to turn to the many translations and to compare them, becoming aware that the visual phenomenon can be encircled in numerous ways.

These ways I am not going to exploit here in detail, but as, roughly a month ago, I was becoming aware of the phenomenon in nature, I immediately, almost automatically, did take some pictures, some of which (partly processed, also to make them more artificial) I am showing here. And perhaps intuitively, perhaps knowing without knowing, I had felt that I was going to write about it – about ways of looking, not at Wang Wei, but at this phenomenon that once, 1200 years ago, took the attention of this poet, and at the ways this phenomenon is being dealt with by some translators, resulting with the phenomenon of lighted moss seen through a prism of language.

The poem, in the translation by Barton Watson, is short and seemingly simple, it goes:

Empty hills, no one in sight,
only the sound of someone talking;
late sunlight enters the deep wood,
shining over the green moss again.

What I have been noticing since July is that the poem deals with the paradox of presence and absence. People seem to be absent – but still can be heard. The deers are absent – but the lodge is being named after them. And the sun, not yet sunk, has the ability to pierce through the deep wood.
It seems to me, looking at the various translations as well as at the original, that the poem is referring to sun rays that are indirectly entering the wood, perhaps due to reflection from walls of rock, and this would mean that the phenomenon referred to by Wang Wei is caused by indirect reflection and not by sun rays, directly, piercing through the forest.
I have been noticed that some translators seem to struggle with naming the lighting of moss, which seems to be a simple phenomenon, but the language of science, probably, might come in your way. If you start to think about what this phenomenon is all about – about reflection vs. absorbing of light, for example – it is becoming more complicated – as the magical effect is being disenchanted. The Chinese language leaves more than one way to translate the color – it can be refer to green, but also to blue. And moss is not necessarily moss (but can be lichen). Be it as it may. Here are some examples of describing – by words – what I have tried to catch with my pictures (for the full translations see the above named book by Eliot Weinberger:

In reflection mosses appear
Sunlight shines back to me from the moss
Sunlight casts patters on the moss
Rays gleam again on the moss
The moss is lit again
Light glitters on the moss
Shafts of the sun pick out the moss

My personal understanding of that poem is that it indirectly evokes the idea that in seeming absence of things the whole unity of things can shine out. Even in fading light, at dusk, moss can be lit. We know of the deers, of the cherry trees, we know of the poetry, written long ago, and suddenly, absence can turn into presence. By way of light. By way of remembering things, books and people. This can be thought without evoking a specific spiritual dimension. But it is an experience in daily life, perhaps it is spirituality per se.

On the walls of the ditch that runs downwards, almost at the reservoir, someone had placed two DVDs, for someone to pick them up (the Blood Diamond movie and a documentary on the psycholoy of teenagers). I did not do so, but I did take notice that someone seemed to imply that even a very quiet street is not necessarily empty, that occasionally someone might pass by, who might be absent most of the time, but not always. By now, someone had picked the DVDs. And in my pictures, if you look very close, you might see that the patch of moss had been growing on a kind of wire mesh. Someone had been there, once ago, long before this particular patch of moss had grown and lit.

Literature:

Eliot Weinberger, Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei. With More Ways, New York 2016

(Picture: DS)

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