The writing time of this poem is unknown. According to Mr. Wang's speculation, it was probably written between July of the second year of Changqing's appointment to Hangzhou secretariat and his resignation to Suzhou secretariat in the second year. Zhu Jincheng's Notes on Bai Juyi believes that this poem was written in Changqing three years ago.
Bai Juyi's poems are not only famous for their simple language, but also for their beautiful artistic conception. Although the language of this poem is easy to understand, the theme is quite puzzling, which seems to be a special case in white poetry. This poem is almost "untitled" with the first three words as the title. The first two sentences should be read as "flowers-non-flowers, fog-non-fog", which gives people an unpredictable feeling first. Both "non-flower" and "non-fog" are negative, but they all contain a self-evident premise: like flowers, like fog.
Poetry appreciation
Some people think that this is Zen poetry, and flowers are not flowers. This is a Buddhist proposition. It is said that everything is empty and everything is an illusion of nothingness. Bai Juyi expressed this Yi Chan theory in the form of poetry, so his poetry is full of Zen. The illusion of spring dreams, the shortness of clouds and the confusion of flowers and fog symbolize the hypocrisy of all reality.
This poem adopts the form of alternating three sentences and seven sentences, which is a flexible use of the three-seven-seven sentence pattern of folk songs at that time. It has both orderly rhythm and intricate beauty, much like later poems. A great change in the content of five-character poems and seven-character poems is that they tend to express people's inner state, and so does this poem. It is not surprising that this phenomenon of "poetry is like fine print" appeared in the works of Bai Juyi, a poet who was engaged in ci creation earlier in the Tang Dynasty.
Reference to the above content: Baidu Encyclopedia-"Flowers are not flowers"