Birthday poem · March 8Awakening of Insects, the 3rd solar term: the first thunder; insects stir.
Birth character
歸 guī · return home
歸 first meant a woman going to her husband's home; it came to mean returning.
風雪夜歸人
“Someone coming home through the wind and snow.” — Liu Changqing, ‘Snow at Hibiscus Mountain’
The poem
“Peach Blossoms at Dalin Temple” 大林寺桃花
- 人間四月芳菲盡In the fourth month, the flowers of the world are gone;
- 山寺桃花始盛開in the mountain temple, the peach blossoms are just in full bloom.
- 長恨春歸無覓處I always regretted that spring left without a trace —
- 不知轉入此中來not knowing it had turned and come in here.
Why this poem
Bai Juyi finds peach blossom just opening at a mountain temple in the fourth month.
This day in the Chinese calendar
Solar term: Awakening of Insects.