Birthday poem · April 16Clear and Bright, the 5th solar term: the weather warms and plants turn green.
Birth character
春 chūn · spring
春 shows plants sprouting under the sun; it means spring.
春眠不覺曉
“This spring morning in bed I'm lying” — Meng Haoran, ‘Spring Dawn’
The poem
“Early Spring: For Zhang the Eighteenth of the Ministry of Water” 早春呈水部張十八員外
- 天街小雨潤如酥tiān jiē xiǎo yǔ rùn rú sūThe capital's streets soft with rain as fine as cream;
- 草色遙看近卻無cǎo sè yáo kàn jìn què wúGrass color seen afar—up close, no green is seen.
- 最是一年春好處zuì shì yī nián chūn hǎo chùThis is the fairest hour of all the year's spring,
- 絕勝煙柳滿皇都jué shèng yān liǔ mǎn huáng dōuFar better than misty willows filling the imperial scene.
Why this poem
Han Yu on early spring: grass looks green from afar but vanishes up close.
This day in the Chinese calendar
Solar term: Clear and Bright.