River Snow - A Landscape Poem

Today I write about the poem River Snow. This poem swept me into a landscape where, as you will soon find out, I became an active participant in a work of art!

River Snow
“A thousand mountains
          no birds flying
Ten thousand paths
         devoid of human trace
A lone boat, a bark-caped
         old man —
Alone, he angles
          a cold river of snow”

City University of Hong Kong
Translation by Chunshen Zhu

River Snow is a Chinese landscape poem written by poet Liu Zongyuan (773 – 819). I recently read a scholarly dissertation (click here) about this poem; the dissertation was written by Hong Kong scholar Chunshen Zhu and it included his keen observations and his fine translation into English.

Armed with Chunshen’s poetic analyses, as I re-read the poem it jumped off of the page, picked up a brush, and began to create a vivid work of art!

Liu’s poem began painting a landscape which forced my attention to move from place to place as I could only watch. Recreating the painting in my mind’s eye, I found myself borrowing from memories of real-life landscapes; National Parks, Desert Mountains, rivers, birds in flight, and other scenes in nature that I have often enjoyed.

As I now think about River Snow, slowly reading it line by line, I find I am becoming a part of this landscape and that I am trying to narrate all that I can see and feel.

Narrating my own vision of the poem’s landscape? Well…yes, like this:

Initially, I am standing on a high mountain cliff. I am looking outward over a vast, dry, brown desert - mountain ranges are visible far off on the horizon. Nothing is moving, there are no signs of life, and roadways leading toward the mountains are completely empty. I begin to feel and hear a light wind blowing.

Before me, a narrow river snakes its way out across the desert and vanishes as it enters the distant mountains.

I look down, then over the edge of my mountain cliff and notice a river below; an older man is sitting motionless in a small boat – he holds a fishing rod with its line angling straight downward into the water. Nothing is moving in this scene, there is only solitude.

I look up toward the sky. Snowflakes are beginning to fall and I am feeling chilled.

Glancing back down to the river, I am startled to see that the entire landscape has changed – it is blanketed in whiteness!

Snow is clinging to the old man’s coat; his boat and fishing pole have ridges of snow lining their top surfaces, the river’s banks are rounded with mounds of snow and, what was once a vast brown desert is now a great white expanse stretching outward toward snow covered mountain ranges.

The poem ends and as it does, the scenery dissolves before my eyes. I am back in my home’s office staring at my laptop PC, writing something on this blog while trying to decide what I will say next.

So…what did you see while reading River Snow? Please do comment