KangXi Drinks Tea From His Porcelain Eggshell Teacups

KangXi Emperor, Age 45.

by Brett Rutherford

Adapted and expanded from the paintings and poems on twelve Qing Dynasty teacups.

FIRST MONTH

Snow comes, but so too,
the early blossoms,

plum, while down below
the delicate narcissus

buds up among the
bamboo, indestructible.
My sheltered courtyard
encourages such early
arrivals, out of season.

Nature, I ask,
or sly gardening?

Even when all is still,
fragrance moves on its own
from branch to ground,
along the cold rocks,
and then inside
to the teacup’s rim.

 

SECOND MONTH

Evening rain pelts
the abundant flowers
on the apricot trees.

Their stamens radiate
attentive tendrils alert
to every falling drop.

Sunshine or mist
paint watercolor

upon the pale hue
of the white petals.

Am I smelling them,
or does the rain wear
a subtle perfume,
enchanting, seducing
me to put down the teacup,
disrobe, and walk
in the gentle downpour?

 

THIRD MONTH

Peach blossoms should really
employ a whole orchestra
to boom out good news
with their coming.

In Heaven, the peaches bloom
and bear fruit at the same time,

the food the monkeys covet
which makes the gods immortal.

Peach blossoms should fall
with gongs and drums,
alerting the farmers
to renew their labors,
and calling back
the welcome song-birds.

To drink tea beneath
a grove of tall and blossoming
peaches, requires company.
An emperor-to-be
invites two heroes
to drink and swear oaths
of eternal brotherhood.

The peach is the witness
to their youth and honor.

 

FOURTH MONTH

One must be up at dawn
to see the sly peony
untighten its grasp
on night, and drink
the dew of the immortals.

Once it has opened in full,
one almost faints
at how it makes a sphere
of petals a rose would die
to emulate, how ants
come climbing up the stems
to do it worship.

Only the finest
and most intricate
scholar’s stone
is worthy to stand
beside the peony,
a sculpture carved
by wind and water,
carried from afar
to be one peony tree’s
shade, shelter, and
companion.

An emperor seeks
one such, among
his counselors.
The maddening scent
mocks those who work
in the Jade Hall, where
wisdom is sought.
In vain.

 

FIFTH MONTH

Heavy as rocks,
the pomegranates hang
from their sturdy tree.
Yellow spheres aburst
with wet red seeds,
will ripen and blush
at their own abundance.

Their silhouettes,
as I drink tea,
wave back and forth
on the white-washed wall
behind me. The seeds
as plentiful as bees
in a hive, cannot
be counted. Taste
pomegranate, and tea
is, for a moment,
forgotten. It is
the garden’s concubine.

 

SIXTH MONTH

Look down below!
Who notices, in mud,
the lowly lotus root
like unearthed jade?
Yet when it bursts to bloom
the whole world worships it.

Two mandarin ducks
swim in the pond.
Their adoration
of the lotus flower
is in the way small waves
make furrows out
beneath their feet,
the small bows
of bill to water.

Only the crane,
from its cloud-perch
can see the symmetry
of lotus, water, shore,
the two brown ducks,
and one aged and lanky
Emperor, cup in hand.

 

SEVENTH MONTH

I sit. I have my tea.

All wish me well,
or so they say.
A seventh cup
they place before me.
Pale tea moves
second-hand as water
boils, goes through
the yi xing teapot

(mine alone),

and into the eggshell
porcelain. No hand
but mine has touched it.
All wish me well,
but there is always poison
to worry about.
Mistrust of doctors, too,
if any of them
have better friends,
and younger,
than my Imperial self.

This cup is adorned
with the most reliable
flower: the rose.
Although its heady
oil, perfume’s bounty,
makes me sneeze,

I respect its tenacity.
Outliving winters,
indifferent gardeners,
and even dark
conspiracies,
one shade against
another fratricide,

it just keeps going on.

Just as this emperor
goes on from year to year
outliving all prophecies

the tough rose
blooms anytime
it pleases.

 

EIGHTH MONTH

Just as the hare
has many progeny,
the guihua tree,

osmanthus, from
the far-off Himalayas,
flowers and branches
endlessly, spring,
winter, and fall.

An evergreen,
and fragrant too,
it flavors a tea
and an autumn wine
the Emperor is known
to savor in private.

Two things at least,
the world shall never
run out of: rabbits
and guihua trees.

 

NINTH MONTH

O Chrysanthemum,
the only way
to enjoy you,
is with a wine-cup
in hand. Oh, very well,

the Emperor may hold
his favored tea-cup full
of tea made from dried
chrysanthemum petals,

while everyone else
goes mad with its liquor.
Nature joins in.
Insane butterflies
flutter about, bees faint
with overdose of pollen.

Two hands, two eyes
are not enough
to paint the things
chrysanthemums
make happen.

A thousand year’s memories
crowd into one day
of sun-burst petals.

 

TENTH MONTH

Indoors,
among the orchids,
the Emperor takes tea,
on the day of many
bloomings. Stubborn,
the pampered ladies
withhold their colors,
refuse to unfurl
their sumptuous hoods.

Unlike the concubines
who come when summoned,
the orchids, keep close
and treasured just as much
as ladies of high families,

cling to rock and branch,
shy and particular.

And then, one day,
the eunuchs come running:

They are ready, Majesty,
the orchids are blooming!

 

ELEVENTH MONTH

Unable to sleep,
the Emperor walks,
unseen,
and unaccompanied
by guard or eunuch,
in a sheltered garden.

Is that Narcissus
he sees in moonlight,
breaking the soil
like waves against a dike?
Will they bloom so soon?

Dare they?  Is this
the Daoist gardener’s
laboratory, where plants
are made to bloom at will,
a fox-fairy’s paradise?

At sudden turn, he sees
the old gardener, lamp
in hand, who, horrified
to face his master,
trembles and begins
the humbling know-tow.

“Stand, you old magician,”
the Emperor intones.
“You have not seen me.
I was not here. Those were not
flowers seen too soon.

I have had entirely
too much tea.”

TWELFTH MONTH

Out and about
when he should not have been,
the Emperor paced
in a poorly-heated room,
hands cupping
the small tea-cup
as much for warmth
as for the taking
of such a small dose
of reality.

His feet trampled frost.
His eyes took in
the beauteous pattern
of ice on flagstones,
the tendril’d snow
at grass’s edge.

The sun had risen.
The abundant blossoms
of wintersweet lit up
with the morning’s own
gold. Not a leaf
in sight, but all those
petals sprung
from out bare branches.

How rare among
the flowering trees
was this, which bloomed
defiantly
while others shivered,
barren, for warmer days.

 

EPILOGUE

Twelve cups,
in a rosewood cabinet,
each for a lunar month.
On delicate eggshell
porcelain, so thin
that light shines through,
an artist painted such scenes,
and a poet described them
calligraphy beneath the glaze.

The cup was for
one drinker only. He,
the Son of Heaven,
ate all his meals alone,
drank tea alone —
not from the coarse cups
seen at the state banquets —
from these small, footed,
porcelain bowls.

With the rising of each moon,
one cup was taken
discreetly away
and replaced with the next.

Figures On A Kangxi Vase

by Brett Rutherford 

The world might end
and they would not know it.
High on the slope
of a sacred mountain,
six mortal scholars gather
in a mansion garden.

Master Liu
has arranged everything
to mitigate
the heat of August.
A folding screen
conceals sun’s glare
and shades the table
where four enjoy
cold wine
from an antique flagon.

Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
Gao, the exiled
high official, arrives
with a banned book
close to his heart.

His nephew, young
and handsome, feels
overdressed, and would
prefer a shady glen
to nap in, hatless
with collar undone.

A small boy, restless,
another bored
participant,
would rather be at
his bow and arrow,
or watching the play
of wild horses, but here
the slow pace of old men
calling to mind a poem,
leafing the pages to find
a Confucian dictum,
must suffice.
Honor it is
to be with the wise.

Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
Crouching, a servant
adds coals to fire
beneath the brazier
meant to refresh
brown yi xing teapots.

Low walls zig-zag
the edge of Liu’s estate.
Trees overhang
the painted screen,
branches identical
to what the artist
painted there.
How daring to place
a painted forest
before a real one!

Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
In mountain fog
the distant peaks,
even the edge
of a nearby precipice
are lost in white
as pale as porcelain.

All is foreground
and an extended hand
might touch cold glaze,
tracing the curve
of the limits of existence.

Frozen this once
and forever, the old men
debate the merits
of poetic styles,
deliberate
on whether things
are permanent
or fade to nothing.

Cool wine, warm tea,
the rise and fall
of a remembered song;
muffled, the dim roar
of falling waters;
calligraphy called up
from nothing to drop
upon a blank page.

Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
A day too hot
for any other purpose.
The world might end
if eyes sought deep
into the denser mist,
a yellow glare,
gnat-flecked, in which
two butterflies hover,
weightless, immobile,
and terrified.

What is this blotch
upon pure whiteness?
The burning sun
craving to show itself?
A distant city
ablaze, invaded?
The exploding scream
of a split atom?

Gao, the book!
Be quick, my friend!
Find the right page,
the words to read,
the names of gods,
if gods there are,
we need invoke.

Here in the clarity
made plain by tea,
a thousand years
of wisdom adheres.
So long, the afternoons,
so short the nights
of bug-bite August.

Here they are safe,
scholars, nephew,
boy, and servant.
Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
They need not fear
the world might end.

[A hand-painted blue-and-white vase depicts scholars in a garden. Behind four seated scholars, a painted, folding screen protects them from sun and wind. The trees painted on the screen are the same as those around them. All is foreground – no distant landscape is visible, as though the scene were surrounded by fog. Under the vase’s glaze, a large open area has a slight yellow cast, and the vase painter has drawn little dust-flecks around the edge of the mysterious glow, and placed two butterflies hovering there. What looks like a defect in the color of the clay seems purposeful, and we are asked to explain its cause, and why the scholars seem suspended in the foreground.]

 

 

The God Pan, in Bronze

 by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, vii, 535

Mock me if you will with cries,
whistles, sheep sounds, wolf calls.
I am not to be dislodged, will not
turn my back to the busy avenue.

No more shall I, the cloven-footed
god, content myself with flocks
of stupid sheep, tame dogs,
and the unruly rompings of the goats.
I, Pan, am now a city-dweller.

Trust me, mountains are beautiful,
so long as you do not climb them.
Enough of up-and-down — the up
in particular. But it is grief

that brings me here, a grief
that requires distraction. Silent,
my pipe, and broken, my song
have been since Daphnis died.
Daphnis, a cousin-love,
a son of Hermes, handsome
as the god of dreams himself,
who kindled new fire
     in this old heart
     is gone, and with him my

merry smile. No grapes I pick,
no fruit I pluck from summer’s
rain-heavy branches. The dew
has not run rivulets down
from brow to beard — my tears
discolor my cheeks of bronze.

Young ones: seek in vain
to meet me in the forest.
Hunters: no more shall my pipe
suggest to you the brake
in which the fleet deer slumber.

I am here to stay, a sad Pan,
bereaved of one Daphnis.
If another comes, with just
such eyes, and shoulders proud —
well, then, we shall see.

The Statue Speaks

 by Brett Rutherford

     from Callimachus, Epigram 26

Stranger, your passing glance
diminishes me. Hero am I;
my weapon is drawn; beneath
my foot the serpent peeks out.

 No less a man than Eetion,
born of Amphipolis, has set me here,
beside the doors of this, his home,
a small bronze in a small
vestibule.

                    No mount have I;
my sword is made, not for
the downward-looking cavalry,
but for the upward lunge.
I am no less a warrior for that.

 Although of Trojan descent,
Eetion is not a man
of equine disposition.
“A horse outside my door?”
he scoffs. “Greeks made us
such a one betimes,
and look where that got us!”

 

The Mattress, Vertical

Photo by Tony Buba, 2020. Used with permission.

by Brett Rutherford

after a photo by Tony Buba


The mattress, vertical,
sleeps none.
Sleepers and dogs
and cats, flakes
of dry skin and dust mites,
a slurry of cracker crumbs
and the sighs of forgotten
orgasms, have sloughed away
into the hungry soil
of the abandoned weedlot.

The mattress, vertical,
more like a tombstone
than a nuptial platform,
dimpled with stitching,
dappled with silhouette
of starving tree-scape,
is hungry for occupants,
makes do with shadows —

a traffic cone considers
a rest, inscribes a "V",
then an inverted signature,
as if to stake a claim.
The photographer, retired,
just comes up short
of putting his outline there.
He hesitates; he's nearly
always sleepy this time of day.
One step forward, one
step back, he hesitates.

No one would notice
if he reclined a while,
just thirty minutes until he'd
be as good as new. But no:
the thought of bedbugs,
hands reaching for his camera,
the curiosity of skunk and badger.

Better to let
a mattress, vertical
go on about
its very important business.
Whatever that is.

The Virgin Mary, After One View of the Kama Sutra

by Brett Rutherford

     after the painting by Campin

Flemish Maria has been up all night
reading the sweet books her lover procured,
unruly books with their naughty pictures
of men, and of maids, and of beasts and bees,
verdigris-colored lawns and turquoise skies.
Her nurse concealed them in sewing basket
past the ever-watchful eyes of parents.
She’s read all night, and studied positions
shown in an otherwise unreadable
quarto that Hans procured from India
(he would explain everything, he told her).


Now night’s dim candle has been extinguished
to barter for study in morning's rays.
Another book, the holy one, adorns
the tabletop, but hers, she must conceal
by veiling its more lurid reds in silk.
She dreams of a Bengali gazebo,
how two bronze-banded arms might hold her tight.
Two other men watch through a latticework,
chestnut-brown eyes upon her nakedness
while she pretends to be none the wiser:
O Eros, what a great game thou playest!

To catch the light she kneels; her elbow leans
on velvet cushioning, quite unaware
of how the in-folds and out-turns of gown
have lured two peeping, immaterial ghosts.
First, Gabriel: a beardless, mincing boy,
a wingèd beauty, but no match for her.
Heaven's eunuch flaps in like a sparrow
for a chat with the studious maiden.

He tells her what God has in mind. — “Why me?”
She can’t imagine why she was chosen.
Her protests will not help — though she is not
a virgin, really —  she has promised, sworn
to run off with her gentle ravisher.

“His name is Hans. He is not remotely
angelic. Odd teeth and a broken nose.
Why not choose that blond, Angelica, who
all but asks for it with her haughty name?”

But the angel babbles on about it —
his speech was all memorized, anyway.
He says she’ll be an unwitting mother,
warm hen to an invisible rooster,
then, a mother of one whose destiny
was written in stars and a prophecy.

“No, no,” she says, “I want no part of this,
and Hans would never forgive me; how could
he raise a son he did not recognize?”
Down comes Maria’s second visitor.
This one does not negotiate consent:
the ghost streaks down like molten mercury,
the tiny cross he rides like arrow-bolt
aimed straight at her womb, a battering ram.

This missile is Christ in miniature,
prefigured end already there in seed;
for her, a birth unasked-for, All-Mother-
of-Dead-Son her immortal agony.

Her eyes turn again to the outlawed book.
If she pretends she never heard the angel,
that nothing but a gadfly descended,
that a picture is worth a thousand words
of that indecipherable Sanksrit.
She sighs and thinks: That’s Hans on top, and me
on the bottom. Those chestnut eyes behind
the open latticework: watch over us!