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Can I dream?


© 2006
BASID #695

Beth Ames Swartz
Can I dream?
acrylic, paste and holographic film on canvas
30" x 30" (0.76m x 0.76m)
2006

Words in blue visible in painted frame

Li Bai (701 - 762 A.C.E., Chinese); also Romanized Li Po.


Endless Yearning I

"I am endlessly yearning
To be in Changan.
...Insects hum of autumn by the gold brim of the well;
A thin frost glistens like little mirrors on my cold mat;
The high lantern flickers; and. deeper grows my longing.
I lift the shade and, with many a sigh, gaze upon the moon,
Single as a flower, centred from the clouds.
Above, I see the blueness and deepness of sky.
Below, I see the greenness and the restlessness of water....
Heaven is high, earth wide; bitter between them flies my sorrow.
Can I dream through the gateway, over the mountain?
Endless longing
Breaks my heart. "


The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology (Being 300 Poems of the T'ang Dynasty, 618-906) translated by Kiang Kang-Hu, Witter Bynner, Tang Shi IV. 1. (80)