The Month the Almonds Bloom
appreciate the splendor of Jade, purple, green, gorgeous orange and yellow, black, white and mist-like gray. And Woo Fung was a poet. For each bit of Jade he carved he wrote a bit of verse and always as he worked, he sang; songs of willows, of shadowy hills and of spring. Once he made a gong of jade that tinkled when it was struck like music of Chinese Fairies or of the Sky People that roam about the Blue Highways among the wondrous clouds. The verse he fashioned for it was of extreme simplicity.
"Whence comes the tinkle
Of a Bell of Jade?
From coral seas,
From purple skies,
From fluttering echoes
Of laughing baby eyes?
Whence goes the tinkle
Of a Bell of Jade?
To silver clouds,
To gorgeous flowers,
To slant-eyed Manchu girls
Or to summer showers?"
Woo Fung was a great artist. He received inspiration from sky and sea and gardens and from the eyes of the beautiful Lady Shun Kao who was as slim as a
woodland fairy. Her hair was black with the slightest
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