Birthday poem · February 13Start of Spring, the 1st solar term: spring begins in the traditional calendar.
Birth character
新 xīn · new
新 first meant cutting wood with an axe; it was borrowed to mean new.
客舍青青柳色新
“The willows by the tavern look so fresh and green.” — Wang Wei, ‘Farewell to Yuan Er on His Mission to Anxi’
The poem
“Spring Walk by Qiantang Lake” 錢塘湖春行
- 幾處早鶯爭暖樹Here and there early orioles vie for the sunny trees;
- 誰家新燕啄春泥whose new swallows are pecking at the spring mud?
- 亂花漸欲迷人眼Wild flowers are starting to dazzle the eye;
- 淺草纔能没馬蹄the short grass is just deep enough to hide a horse's hooves.
Why this poem
Bai Juyi on West Lake in early spring: orioles at the trees, swallows carrying mud.
This day in the Chinese calendar
Solar term: Start of Spring.