Love of Ci'an (Poem with Poet's Comments)

"Love of Ci'an"
by Tim Kavi

gentle breezes
flew from
Kunming's
frozen lake

I walked it
with my love
near Cixi's place

Then I heard
her gentle sighs
in the full light
of winter's surprise

where
in the hall of
the Buddhas
near a
Temple of Incense

your heart
was fully seen
in the ghostly sheen

mist of
winter morn
I heard
your whispers
to a future unborn

for in the
plans of Cixi
you were
overlooked
love was but a dream

wafting
in the smoke
and carried
throughout
eternity

yet it
warmed
my cold hands
with the gloves
you bought

across
the Great Wall
flying
to the Deserts
of Dunhuang

as beautiful
as Guan Yin

the wind
that blew between
us and brought
me to your wings

to your lips
two countries
two hearts

that had
now evolved
to mix together
yet now lived
so far apart

found
each other
in that first
destiny's kiss

but was
too soon departed.

Poet's Comments: After publishing this poem it raised some reader interest, and I was contacted with some questions about it. The consensus among readers was that there is something Chinese and Buddhist about the poem and that it is also a personal poem. Yes, this poem does have several levels of meaning to it and there are aspects of it that are written in a very personal way.

First of all, the poem has both Buddhist and Chinese themes. It is Buddhist because it mentions the Caves of Dunhuang (where some sacred Buddhist cave drawings are near where the Goddess Guan Yin encountered the Monkey King). Guan Yin the Bodhisattva or Buddhist Goddess of Compassion is mentioned in the poem as well. The poem has Chinese influences as well because the setting of the poem is in China at The Summer Palace in Beijing. Kunming Lake is there, and I did walk on the frozen lake in the Winter of 2005. Later that day, I also had the pleasure of touring the grounds of the Summer Palace, including the Long Corridor and at the very highest point, the Buddhist Temple of Incense. This was in part, a building with a very large Buddha in it and many other Buddhas lined the walls of that place.

The Summer Palace was one of the residences of the Emperor and Empress, indeed the last of them, as the Qing Dynasty ended in 1908. The last major empress to live there was Cixi who supplanted Ci'an. Cixi was a powerful empress, some would consider a despot and villain, others see her as very intelligent and highly political. Ci'an was the main consort of the Emperor until Cixi became the predominant one and bore the Emperor his only son. Where Ci'an was quiet, loyal, and an Empress known for meekness, Cixi was very much her opposite, skillful and manipulative, and ruling whatever she could with a conniving and mighty fist. Although an Empress was never allowed to make political suggestions, Cixi often did so from behind a curtain. Cixi became the main Empress especially after the sudden death of Ci'an. Some believe that Ci'an was poisoned by Cixi because Ci'an had always been in excellent health until the day of her untimely death.

In this poem there is some encounter with a presence or ghostlike figure, such as Ci'an. Ci'an, who feels overlooked, is longing for love. Her spirit is felt by the foreigner who even comes from a distant land. Like incense, her symbolic nature as part of history spreads out over the Great Wall and then all the way to the Dunhuang caves (which is out along the Silk Road and near Mongolia) where she is like the goddess. As a counterpoint there is a dramatic outplaying of this tension between two cross cultural lovers as they are finding each other in love --shown in other verses of this poem. This mirrors China's encounters with the West in general. Obviously, some of the verses in the poem are between the two lovers themselves as they find themselves in this historical place, or perhaps, there is an encounter of a man with the ghost of Ci'an! ---- T.K.