Birthday poem · August 31End of Heat, the 14th solar term: the summer heat eases.

Birthday poem card for August 31: “Frost and Moon” by Li Shangyin. Birth character 青, green-blue.

Birth character

青 qīng · green-blue

青 means blue-green, the colour of new plants and clear sky.

青山橫北郭
“Green mountains bar the northern sky” — Li Bai, ‘Farewell to a Friend’

Other dates with this poem: October 31

The poem

“Frost and Moon” 霜月

  1. 初聞征雁已無蝉When I first hear the passing geese, the cicadas are gone;
  2. 百尺樓高水接天from the hundred-foot tower, the water meets the sky.
  3. 青女素娥俱耐冷The Frost Maiden and the Moon Goddess both endure the cold,
  4. 月中霜裏鬥嬋娟vying in beauty in the moon and the frost.

Li Shangyin 李商隱 · Tang dynasty · c. 813–858 · seven-character verse

English translation by Poetune.

Why this poem

Li Shangyin on frost and moon in late autumn, as geese arrive and cicadas go.

This day in the Chinese calendar

Solar term: End of Heat.

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