I
 An old man sits
 In the shadow of a pine tree
 In China.
 He sees larkspur,
 Blue and white,
 At the edge of the shadow,
 Move in the wind.
 His beard moves in the wind.
 The pine tree moves in the wind.
 Thus water flows
 Over weeds.

        II
 The night is of the colour
 Of a woman's arm:
 Night, the female,
 Obscure,
 Fragrant and supple,
 Conceals herself.
 A pool shines,
 Like a bracelet
 Shaken in a dance.

        III
 I measure myself
 Against a tall tree.
 I find that I am much taller,
 For I reach right up to the sun,
 With my eye;
 And I reach to the shore of the sea
 With my ear.
 Nevertheless, I dislike
 The way ants crawl
 In and out of my shadow.

        IV
 When my dream was near the moon,
 The white folds of its gown
 Filled with yellow light.
 The soles of its feet
 Grew red.
 Its hair filled
 With certain blue crystallizations
 From stars,
 Not far off.

        V
 Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,
 Nor the chisels of the long streets,
 Nor the mallets of the domes
 And high towers,
 Can carve
 What one star can carve,
 Shining through the grape-leaves.

        VI
 Rationalists, wearing square hats,
 Think, in square rooms,
 Looking at the floor,
 Looking at the ceiling.
 They confine themselves
 To right-angled triangles.
 If they tried rhomboids,
 Cones, waving lines, ellipses --
 As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon --
 Rationalists would wear sombreros.

I have often worked with classes of students on this poem, and I like doing it because each class, when discussing and interpreting it make it a very peculiar poem; I have tried to gather the different interpretations my students and I have been giving to the poem and to unite them . The titles has, of course, influenced all class discussions. If these are “Six Significant Landscapes” we have always started from the effort to visualize them and then to attribute them meaning. What has emerged is, more or less this:

+————————————————————————+

Stanzas

Continents

Types

Themes

Messages

——-+———-+—————+—————–+——————-

I

Asia

The philosopher

Time vs. Eternity

Man can acquire

wisdom to

appreciate what is

valuable (water)

and what is not

(weeds)

——-+———-+—————+—————–+——————-

II

Africa

The dancer

The fascination

Man can appreciate

and sensuality of

and enjoy the

natural life.

fascination of

life.

——-+———-+—————+—————–+——————-

III

-

The poet

Awareness of the

Man must judge

ego, in

himself and

The man

comparison with

collocate himself

nature and other

in the universe and

people.

in society

——-+———-+—————+—————–+——————-

IV

America

The divinity

Ideality,

It is also

spiritual

pleasant/important

elevation

to cultivate

dreams.

——-+———-+—————+—————–+——————-

V

Europe

-

Art vs. nature

Nature is the most

appealing form of

art. (however

suggestive art

could be)

——-+———-+—————+—————–+——————-

VI

-

Rationalists

The self-imposed

Man should look

limits of

beyond the limits

rationalism.

of any kind of

ideology

+————————————————————————+

This is only a limitative synthesis of all that this poem has suggested, but, in general, when we come to the last stanza of the poem we have often found, or felt that to interpret the poem simply as “rationalism is a limit” was disqualifying the poem. Personally, I think that the final message is that a “complete” man should have all these “landscapes” in himself, and, especially, he should try to look afar, beyond the boundaries suggested by his own continent, language, religion, natural background, social status, cultural background … trying to perceive or create more and more landscapes of the soul.

— Cristina