There is an old saying in our tradition: "to not lose the teaching of poetry." To have grievance, to have satire, and for these grievances and satires to be expressed rightly—this is called not losing the teaching of poetry. Su Dongpo is the exemplar. Su Dongpo's misfortunes were greater than most; he had more reason than anyone to grieve and satirize. Yet not only did he not grieve more than others, he transformed his sorrows into eternal magnanimity and generosity. As in: "May we all be blessed with longevity, sharing the beauty of the moon across a thousand miles." This poem was born of longing, yet it expresses a universal human emotion. Precisely because of this empathy, there is no bitterness in it—only a wistfulness and timelessness that everyone can feel, and behind that wistfulness lies the beautiful emotions of humanity.
Su Dongpo seems to have written few poems of overt satire. He wrote, "From pavilions of song and music, sounds drift faintly; in courtyards of swings, the night deepens." He was lamenting for those in the pavilions, pitying them for missing "A moment of spring night is worth a thousand gold; the flowers exude fragrance, the moon casts its shadows." It is now April. Apparently some Englishman called Eliot said April is the cruelest month. I feel quite the opposite—April is the finest season. The tree canopy below my window has fully unfurled, draped in the best green of the entire year, billowing in the vast spring wind like a sea extending toward infinite distances.
And at night, red and yellow petals fall upon the ground. Sometimes this city has no smog.
The flowers exude fragrance, the moon casts its shadows.
What a wonderful time this is! And yet, from WeChat Moments, from casual browsing, from all manner of noise, we still hear "from pavilions of song and music, sounds drift faintly."
Is Su Dongpo's poetry not political? On the contrary—precisely because it is not political, it is truly political. The less political it is, the more political it becomes. Poetry represents another kind of value, another way of life, and the reason it is "another" is that it refuses what ought to be refused. And what ought to be refused? That which is without value. Because it is without value, Su Dongpo's stance is one of compassionate regret. Wang Wei's poetry, by contrast, gives one the feeling of envying those in power.
True poetry is refusal. Right here, right now. I know that at this particular moment, in some places, in any place, we—and by "we" I mean us as human beings, especially those of us who speak Chinese as a collective—believe there are many things that should be said, and also many things that should not be said, varying according to one's position.
But in this relatively safe April—said to be cruel yet truly the finest—what could be better than "the flowers exude fragrance, the moon casts its shadows"? This is not escapism, nor is it passivity. It is, against those things that truly ought to be refused, the most powerful refusal of all.