Birthday poem · June 23Summer Solstice, the 10th solar term: the longest day of the year.
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
“Eating Lychees” 食荔枝
- 羅浮山下四時春Below Luofu Mountain it is spring all year;
- 盧橘楊梅次第新loquats and bayberries ripen one after another.
- 日啖荔枝三百顆Eat three hundred lychees a day,
- 不辭長作嶺南人and I wouldn't mind staying forever in the far south.
Why this poem
Su Shi in exile in Huizhou eats three hundred lychees a day. Lychees ripen in summer.
This day in the Chinese calendar
Solar term: Summer Solstice.