Meditation On The Children Of Lir Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

Denis Mair recommended I look at your poem as we share an interest in Tu Fu. There are certainly deep correlations between the two poems and both are of great beauty. I sometimes wonder if our poems are our substitutions for the flights of birds. I think in Tu Fu's case, because of the revolutionary disturbances that beset China he was often separated from his family and perhaps there is an element of wish fulfilment in his thoughts. I find both poems most inspiring.

Your poem and the legend remind me of a poem by Tu Fu of the Tang Era. The translation below is by Stephen Owen and revised by me. A few years after the Anlushan Rebellion, on the outskirts of the capital, Tu Fu came upon a tumbledown wall upon which he discerned a mural showing a pair of cranes, now exposed to the elements. Suddenly he realized that as a young man he had visited that house and seen the mural when it was new. In a note to his poem, Du Fu mentions that these were the cranes of the QINGTIAN LEGEND. The legend tells of a hermit who put a spell on a pair of cranes. The cranes submitted to the spell, but insisted that they would only stay with him for five years. Each year they gave birth to a single offspring, which flew away when its wings grew strong. At the end of the fifth year, the mother and father cranes flew away. Some depictions of QINGTIAN CRANES show several cranes, implying that the parents found the haven where the offspring had been waiting. A PAINTING OF CRANES LIKE IN A LEGEND From a poem by Du Fu A pair of cranes glimpsed in a sunbeam In mists of time, above the common dust. I honor the distance they aspire to, Not just these outlines in fading pigment.. With no strain they cross a thousand miles To join their flock by secret accord of souls. They hold themselves like standing phoenixes While mingling with the mortal orioles. Before this sheet was hidden away They came to revel in this guise among us, Now the paper that held their image Surrenders its whiteness to the elements, But their true essence is in rosy clouds, They journey toward an unmuddied pool Travel at will through unseen places Free of restraint, in thrall to no one!

The longing to fly off in a bid for freedom is itself an enthrallment. I wrote about this in SKIES on my PoemHunter page. Upon entering deeply into the soul-medium, we learn of exigencies in that ethereal realm. Each character-type finds freedom in a certain realm. Seen by ordinary daylight, the body of a soul-explorer may seem abandoned.