Haibun: The Peonies of Chang’an

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The daimyo, who ruled over clouds and gods, was said to possess one-seventh of all the greatest teabowls in the world. This was no real surprise since he spent all his time, and all his money, endlessly scouring the province for objects of beauty and virtue. Never mind that his domain was on the verge of financial collapse. And that there was talk of an uprising. For the daimyo refused to be deterred. Not even when his wife questioned his activities:

“How many teabowls do you need anyway?” She asked on more than one occasion.

“As many as it takes,” he always responded.

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But despite a lifetime of collecting, nothing could have prepared him for that first glimpse of the tea-bowl. This occurred around the time his wife’s peonies burst into bloom, when walking through the wooden gate into her garden was to find oneself in fairyland. Bushes grown heavy under the weight of gigantic magenta blossoms, some the size of a small child’s head. The larger flowers were protected from the spring sunshine by paper parasols she’d stuck into the wet ground. His wife doted on the peonies, even more than she doted on him. And so, on a whim, he named the tea-bowl after them.

It’s from an old Tang poem, he told her, composed when the poet finally passed the imperial examination, thereby rising from impoverished recluse to a glittering life at court

          horse galloping through mist
          mind elated, in an instant
          all the peonies of Chang’an

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His wife, not missing a beat, clapped her hands, celebrating those flowers of a thousand years ago. “Everything happens in the blink of an eye,” she said “Oh, these moments which change our lives.”

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