People on the road dance with trees
Everyone is a tree! This tree belongs only to ourselves, only to the land beneath our feet. As an image of life, the "tree" is rooted in the course of our lives.
Taiwanese poet Ji Xian, with his unique poetry, embraced his passionate tree of life. "Someday I Will Become a Tree" is a manifesto in the pursuit of an independent personality. In modern industrial society, people's lifestyles are becoming more and more homogeneous, and people's personalities are gradually disappearing. Rolling red dust, where is not vanity fair? Utilitarian, impetuous, superficial, day by day occupying our spiritual space. However, that distant tree is always nourishing the restless soul of modern man, purifying and sublimating it. Although not Tao Yuanming, the spirit of indifference like a tree is indispensable. At this time, reading "One Day I Will Become a Tree", a fresh and unworldly breath came to the face, which made people moved.
What a beautiful interest in the poem, declaring, "I will become a tree," and making a complete tree! A simple symbol that speaks to the longing that modern people have hidden deep in their hearts. This tree is rooted in the soil, just as we are rooted in life. In pursuit of independent character, why should we go into hiding? Just seek the ordinary, the ordinary. As a "tree", that "little flower", that "red fruit", is beneficial to people. But "not to reproduce", "not to be transplanted into the Garden of Eden", to be independent of the world, and not to be kitsch. Everyone yearns for it, and I do not envy its glory. What a lovely and noble tree, character. It expresses a kind of longing and pursuit of the poet, and also reflects the strong voice of an era of ideological emancipation and independent personality. Only its bluntness, the most cute, only its vulgarity, the most rare, only its ordinary, the most difficult. And the phrase "I am a tree that God does not like" is really a stroke of God to show the "self". Write both "trees" and "people". There is "I", there is "he", and there is also "you" in the poem. The feelings in the poem are heroic, and the ups and downs make you irrepressible.
What moves people the most is the real experience of life. Ji Xian, this lonely wolf chasing the wind and lonely on the wasteland, lyrical temperament with heroic and fiery emotions, leads you and the poet to experience the rhythm of life together, so that you flash the success and failure of your own life in an instant, publicity and depression, high and bitterness; empty thoughts, flying passion, flowing in our blood. At this time, everyone has become a poet, and everyone has observed their love, life, pursuit, and interest from poetry and trees... At this time, the "poem" not only belongs to the poet, but also to the reader. Poetry is to be created. Read, but also create. Otherwise, you will not be able to grasp the soul of the poem.
Although the overall poetry of this poem is not broad and profound, it is still an excellent work. The way in which he writes his words is quite innovative. Among the many poems that write "trees" in modern times, there are also certain characteristics. The unrestrained passion, the implicit poetry, and the superimposed imagery all express the poet's creative realm. In particular, the poet can consciously cut into the spiritual field of the times and human life, and the spirit of the times flashes in the poems from time to time.
Reading such a poem is indeed a wonderful spiritual journey.
Thinking Discussion Questions:
As the central image, the symbolic meaning of the "tree" is relatively clear, so what symbolic significance may the imagery of "earth", "dwarf tree", "towering ancient tree", "non-reproduction", and "God's Garden of Eden" have?
【Attached】
Someday I will become a tree
Strings
One day, I will become a tree;
My hair turned into leaves; my legs became roots;
Two arms and ten fingers become branches; ten toes become root whiskers,
Stretches in the soil to absorb nutrients and water.
Someday, I will become a tree.
I may bloom some particularly fragrant, white, little flowers,
Bear a few red fruits, that is, eat can prolong life,
But I don't breed, I don't reproduce, I'm an exception.
I may have grown taller, taller than I am now, similar to a normal tree.
Not a dwarf tree, nor a towering ancient tree.
I will never be transplanted into the Garden of Eden,
For I am a tree that God does not like.
Excerpted from Guo Jijian and Wang Jian, edited by Three Fine Poems of Taiwan, Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, 1990