It means that the heart is like burnt wood and the body is like a boat without a rope.
"My heart is like a gray tree, and my body is like a boat that is not tied" comes from the self-titled Portrait of Jinshan, which is a six-character quatrain created by Su Shi in the Northern Song Dynasty.
Original text:
My heart is like a gray tree, and my body is like a boat that is not tied.
I asked you about your career, Danzhou, Huizhou, Huangzhou.
Translation: The mind is already silent and unmoved by external things. This life is drifting, like a boat that can't be tied. Someone asked me where my career was, that is, Huangzhou, Huizhou and Danzhou.
Creative background: In March 111, Su Shi set out from Qianzhou, passed through Nanchang, Dangtu and Jinling, arrived in Zhenzhou (now Yizheng, Jiangsu) in May, and planned to live in Changzhou through Runzhou in June. Self-titled Portrait of Jinshan was written by Su Shi when he visited Longyou Temple in Jinshan, Zhenzhou.
Appreciation of Works
When this poem was written, it was two months before Su Shi's death, and the author was over 6 years old, so he came to the end of his life. Looking back on my life, I felt frustrated and frustrated. Even though I had the vast spirit of loyalty and loyalty, I had to turn it into a long sigh of unfulfilled ambition. The author can only lament generously, sighing and falling.
Su Shi thinks that his life's achievements are not when he was a minister in the Ministry of Rites or a foreign minister in the ancestral department, nor in Hangzhou, Xuzhou and Mizhou (the author used to be a magistrate in these three places). Just in the relegated three States. It's really "full of nonsense", but this "Dongpo old man" can "forget the machine with his head white" best. Frustrated or bumpy, he never loses his true colors, which is really hopeless romance. The last two sentences are humorous and self-mocking, but they also profoundly convey the author's delicate mood at the moment.