I’m doing a presentation to the Trinity University Women’s Club on Valentine’s Day about establishing places of creative belonging, and I came across this poem describing one woman’s feelings about her own special place. Read it if you like, then at the end I’ll tell you about the poet:

At Home in the Summer Mountains

I’ve come to the house of the Immortals:
In every corner, wildflowers bloom.
In the front garden, trees
Offer their branches for drying clothes;
Where I eat, a wine glass can float
In the springwater’s chill.
From the portico, a hidden path
Leads to the bamboo’s darkened groves.
Cool in a summer dress, I choose
From among heaped piles of books.
Reciting poems in the moonlight, riding a painted boat . ..
Every place the wind carries me is home.

This was written by Yu Xianji, a Chinese poet who lived in the 9th century during the Late Tang Dynasty.. It’s amazing how women have always expressed a need for a special – even sacred – place of belonging. To read more about Yu Xianji’s remarkable life, click here.