31_days Woxin AU

[flemmings]

Title: What sound of water in the dry lands?
Day/Theme: Thurs Feb.5 - I will be the water for your thirst
Series: Woxin Changdan AU cont'd
Character/Pairing: Fu Chai, Fan Li, Gou Jian

Deserts of the heart

And since this is National Poetry Month or something, another of my faves--

Marina
By T.S. Eliot

Quis hic locus, quae regio, quae mundi plaga?

What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter.

Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning
Death
Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning
Death
Those who sit in the sty of contentment, meaning
Death
Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning
Death

Are become insubstantial, reduced by a wind,
A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog
By this grace dissolved in place

What is this face, less clear and clearer
The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger—
Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye
Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying feet
Under sleep, where all the waters meet.

Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat.
I made this, I have forgotten
And remember.
The rigging weak and the canvas rotten
Between one June and another September.
Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my own.
The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking.
This form, this face, this life
Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me
Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,
The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.

What seas what shores what granite islands towards my timbers
And woodthrush calling through the fog
My daughter.

Comments

[incandescens]

I really can envisage the characters as I read this. It continues t obe fascinating, and oh so possible (and even desirable).

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I have to emphasize the visual part of this because I can't make the characters /sound/ like themselves. Agh-I-wish-I-knew-Chinese, once again.

[incandescens]

Yes, well -- from how I read it, and how I perceived them, it does feel oh so very right.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

This is exactly what I can see (and hear) happening. Thank you so much for telling this story.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That's reassuring.

Are you still in LRD or back among the forest fires in Australian summer now?

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

Flying back tomorrow. Although the online weather forecast for the next few days puts maximum temps in high-twenties Celsius, the hottest days are apparently in Feb-March.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Have a good flight. It was nice having you back here. (sighs, can't wait for feliciter to come back from that lab for good)

This year may be wonky in terms of what happens when. Heat waves there, ice storms in the US, January thaw here, all happened a month earlier than usual. Fingers crossed for an early autumn in Oz.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a masterful portrait of Fan Li (among other things, all excellent), and certainly makes his otherwise inexplicable attachment to Xi Shi that much more plausible. Thank you so much for this.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Series Fan Li makes so much sense to me as someone who feels himself being eaten alive by Gou Jian's black hole magnetism- the energy that draws everything into itself.

People like Shi Mai who are immune to Gou Jian's personal charisma can dislike him (and be loyal to him) for objectice reasons- he's bad for the country or he's the king come-what-may. Balanced rationalists like Wen Zhong can register a personal feeling towards the king without taking it any farther. But Fan Li is achingly sensitive to and aware of Gou Jian's constant attraction and demands, and can't help responding on a gut level; and I don't think he wants to. Cold-hearted, as paleaswater said-- someone who wants to be chary of giving himself and isn't allowed to be. He never looks terribly *happy* ever. A nice wine shop, a pretty girl, and master of his own destiny- that's all he wants from life.

But in series context, you can see his apprenticeship as Gou Jian's BFF giving him the necessary largeness of spirit to accommodate Xi Shi. Early Fan Li would never have been ready to wait fo someone all his life.