Spring-Watching Pavilion | Peter Askim

Spring-Watching Pavilion

Audio Recording

Instrumentation: Mezzo-Soprano and Piano; Duration: 7’15”

Text:

Spring-Watching Pavilion

A gentle spring evening arrives airily,
unclouded by worldly dust.
Three times the bell tolls echoes like a wave.
We see heaven upside down in sad puddles.
Love’s vast sea cannot be emptied. 
And springs of grace flow easily everywhere.
Where is nirvana? 
Nirvana is here, nine times out of ten.

From Spring Essence: The Poetry of Hồ Xuân Hương (Copper Canyon Press, 2000) by John Balaban

 

Request Info/Perusal Score/Parts: peter@peteraskim.com

Hồ Xuân Hương — her given name means “Spring Essence”or “Spring Perfume” — was born around 1780 in a period of calamity and social disintegration. Her fame in Vietnam as a poet 
and cultural figure continues to this day. And while her prosody followed traditional forms, her poems were anything but conventional, but often challenged the male proprieties of her time.