Birthday poem · January 19Minor Cold, the 23rd solar term: the weather turns colder.
Birth character
和 hé · harmony
和 first meant voices answering each other; it came to mean harmony.
湖光秋月兩相和
“The lake's sheen and the autumn moon blend as one” — Liu Yuxi, ‘Gazing at Dongting’
The poem
“Plum” 梅
- 不受塵埃半點侵Not the faintest speck of dust can touch it;
- 竹籬茅舍自甘心content beside a bamboo fence and a thatched hut.
- 只因誤識林和靖Only because it once befriended Lin Hejing
- 惹得詩人說到今have poets been singing of it ever since.
Why this poem
Plum blossom untouched by dust, content beside a bamboo fence. Plums begin to flower around Minor Cold.
This day in the Chinese calendar
Solar term: Minor Cold.