Leaving our departures behind, yesterday’s
sunlight is light I couldn’t hold back,
and throwing my heart into confusion, today’s
sunlight is light bringing tangled sorrows.
Facing ten-thousand-mile winds, autumn geese leaving,
we can still laugh and drink in this tower tonight,
chant poems of Immortality Land, ancient word-bones.
The clarity of Hsieh T’iao reappears here among us:
all embracing, thoughts breaking free into flight,
we ascend azure heaven, gaze into a bright moon.
But slice water with a knife, and water still flows,
empty a winecup to end grief, and grief remains grief.
You never get what you want in this life, so why not
shake your hair loose on a boat at play in dawn light?