Wang Wei Visits Cigeng Zhang

A Fantasy for Cigeng Let me pour you a cup of tea flavored with peach. I call this tea TRANQUILITY. How could it be otherwise on the occasion of our first meeting? You in the flush of youth and myself in a vigorous old age, kept alive by Taoist magic and my own stubborn disregard for anything that does not promote the happiness of life. And so it is I am visiting you, Cigeng, on this autumn night, and it seems to both of us to be a moment of perfection. How could it be otherwise, when two poets, separated by mountains of time, find themselves in a valley of mutual presence. Which of us has performed this Taoist magic? Oh, how we will revel in this memory! I will tell my friends, I have seen the future of China in a young woman's face that radiated the beauty of her deepest self. You will tell your friends of an ancestor's resolve to face the sun every morning with promises and to face the moon every night with their fulfillment. And thus we will share the benefits of our meeting with everyone else. The tea is still warm and sweet... I lived in perilous times. You know this from the poems of my peers, Du Fu and Li Bai. But you also know the whole of history, spread out like a map of human lives for a thousand years, my own life just a blink of that immensity. My heart is troubled by what I have seen of your world. I could always withdraw to the solitude of the mountains and nature would sweetly restore me. But for you I fear there is no such withdrawal, and nature is overwhelmed in your progress. You must cultivate a courage equal to the needs of your Destiny! Still, I want you to remember our meeting as an occasion of laughter, not tears; as a time of bright tranquility, like the tea we drank; an event in time which enhances eternity. I want this meeting to be your Peach Blossom Spring that will never be lost or abandoned, never decline into winter, never dissolve into unreality. I want it to flourish in your deepest self. I want you to say to your friends, The spirit of Wang Wei has lifted our spirits for a thousand years, and he will joyfully pursue this mission for another thousand years. How could it be otherwise? His love for us is the Wheel-Rim River that flows through our lives and forever refreshes us with its goodness and longevity. How could it be otherwise! '