PART FOUR
A Few Strong Voices Still Singing
Poetry from the Sung (960–1279), Yuan (1279–1368), Ming (1368–1628), and Ch’ing (1644–1911) Dynasties to the Twentieth Century
Introduction to Poetry from the Sung, Yuan, Ming, and Ch’ing Dynasties to the Twentieth Century
WHAT WE CALL “HISTORY” HAS PRETTY MUCH EVERYWHERE always been punctuated by soldiers marching to a halt where kings, emperors, or presidents-for-life pronounce a glorious and perhaps perpetual peace. So the Sung also began, in 960, after a hundred years of flailing failure by the T’ang and a chaotic interregnum of another fifty-some years of war.
In China, wen was in traditional culture valued above wu. Wen, which included poetry among its necessary communications skills, also included moral and ethical courage, the sometimes death-defying willingness to stand up to temporal authority in support of the timeless ultimate authority of the people, embodied in the wisdom of the “Sages” of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Wu certainly had its attractions, as we have seen in the earliest Chinese poetry. There is no denying the appeal of physical courage, the willingness to follow orders without questioning, even to the death (at least in a good cause, or for one’s brothers in arms). We also recognize the appeal of the mostly oral communication skills that create the charisma of a warrior captain, in European culture from Homer and from Shakespeare among many other poets.
But, maybe just because of the primacy of wen as a cultural value in China, warfare itself, as a glorious enterprise, doesn’t produce much poetry. The effects of War on the civilian population certainly do, as we have seen in the work of Tu Fu, among others. The last of the great T’ang poets, the Zen monk Kuan Hsiu, perhaps came closest to dealing directly with war, though he did not glorify it, as he satirized warlords and wrote of the travails of border guards. But when, at last, true peace did come, poets felt released, at last, to write “silly love songs” if they pleased.
The end of the great age of classical Chinese poetry begins in the Sung. But, of course, there were many more fine poets, even some great ones, who lived and wrote throughout the period from the end of the T’ang through the beginning of the twentieth century. It was a thousand years before the end of the writing of classical poetry. If all that was left of the grand tradition in 960 was the gold of embers in the hearth, there was plenty of warmth in the fireplace, and a single breath of poetic genius in the room of each remaining dynasty (Sung, Yuan, Ming, and Ch’ing) was still able bring up a real flame. It’s also true that in each of those dynasties, there were more than enough great poets and great poems to fill a library, much less a little book like this, so that there will be no falling off in quality here.
Mei Yao-ch’en (1002–1060), Liu Yung (fl. 1034), and Ou-yang Hsiu (1007–1072), the next poets in the anthology, would all unquestionably be poets of the first rank in any period in Chinese history. Su Shih (1037–1101), also known as Su Tung-p’o, has no more than four or five peers in the whole proud tradition. Li Ch’ing-chao (1084–c. 1151) is among those peers and is also, without any doubt, the best of a sadly short list of accomplished female poets.
Traditional literary historians have acknowledged Sung as the period of the fullest flowering of the tz’u form. That means that now poets wrote tz’u poems in addition to the many kinds of shih. As I mentioned in the introduction, t’zu are poems written to match the wording of preexisting songs (the verb for “writing” a tz’u means literally to “fill in,” to drop words in the slots provided by a song pattern). Tz’u actually became popular toward the end of the T’ang. But in the early Sung, Liu Yung’s convincingly romantic love songs became extraordinarily popular. Ou-yang Hsiu was in his youth a precociously talented young official who teetered on the edge of banishment for unconventional behavior, including well-publicized liaisons with famous courtesans. In maturity he was a literary polymath, a powerful official, and a generous patron of other truly talented poets and officials. When he deigned to put his hand to the writing of tz’u, a stellar batch of others, including Su Shih, followed, if not beginning to write in the form, at least beginning to admit to it. All of Li Ch’ing-chao’s poems are in the form, and without the validation of a literary kingmaker like Ou-yang, all her work, and the tz’u itself, might never have been recognized as “authentic” poetic art.
But the essence of the tz’u was freedom. In the beginning, young writers, outsiders, wrote tz’u in imitation of “barbarian” songs or courtesans’ songs, daring to be inspired by the romance of those lives and the new rhythms of their music. So the form very quickly lost its liveliness when court poets joined in. They tended to favor the application of strict phonetic and grammatical regulation, à la the “regulated verse” of the T’ang.
For the most part, in this final section, for both the tz’u and its Yuan dynasty reincarnations, the various kinds of ch’u poems (with only a few exceptions), I have followed Western convention, titling otherwise untitled tz’u poems with a full or abbreviated first line rather than, as is the Chinese convention, titling them with the title of the tune that dictated their line lengths in Chinese. Indeed, with some of the flimsier (but not unpleasing) Yuan san-ch’u, I’ve left off titles entirely.
The Yuan dynasty is a period that includes three beginning dates: 1226, when the Mongols conquered north China; 1260, when they are credited with finally occupying the rest of China; and 1280, when “pacification” was complete enough to allow the famous Kublai Khan to actually claim the throne of China. By 1368, less than a century after they declared the conquest triumphantly completed, the last of the Mongol ruling classes had run home to the Gobi, while the vast majority of ordinary Mongol folks, lately warrior conquerors but having grown to prefer life as common folk in civilized China to life as ordinary folk in tents in the Gobi, had adopted Chinese surnames and blended happily into the populace of the new Ming dynasty.
The Yuan probably didn’t produce a single great poet, though the dramatist Kuan Han-ch’ing, Ma Chih-yuan, Po P’u, and Chang Yang-hao are all worthy of consideration. But, maybe because of the almost complete social disorder of the period, there is a spirit in Yuan poetry that may always have existed in China but was certainly seldom seen. There are wits and ironists. Consider carefully whether a Yuan poet is bragging or complaining when he says he’s drunk or when she says she’s reached “enlightenment.”
A new cultural “invention,” the operatic drama—actually a theatrical performance mixing fancy verse with straight vernacular prose dialogue, a little more like what we call Shakespearean theater than like present-day Chinese opera—achieved a flourishing commercial popularity and increasing artistic sophistication. Most of the poets presented in this section, most certainly including the wildly bohemian Kuan Han-ch’ing, made their names in the creation of theatrical pieces for commercial performance, thereby becoming among the first Chinese professional men of letters, the first of the traditionally educated literati to actually make a living directly from their literary work.
The new san-ch’u form, similar to the tz’u but freer in execution and including both short lyrics and more complex longer forms suited to narrative and/or dramatic or operatic creation, was wildly popular.
Both blatant hedonistic escapism and the search for personal salvation through Buddhist or Taoist enlightenment are themes more often chosen than in earlier dynasties. These themes may seem particularly appropriate to a period such as the Yuan, and it is also interesting to see how easily the refugee and the socially displaced view their lives and their sufferings, as represented in poetry, as somehow easier to bear when they are literarily refigured by connection with the great Ch’u Yuan, his “Fisherman,” or the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. Again and again in Yuan poems, you will notice T’ao Ch’ien and of course Li Po playing a similar role. Just to get drunk, or just to sit in meditation is one thing (or two); to sit with heroes from other times who share your existential pain seems to be another.
The Ming dynasty was no doubt an “interesting time.” Its founder was a true genius, but one who quickly fell under the spell of absolute power, creating a thoroughly evil government to protect his perhaps beautifully utopian dream. Nonetheless it was also in this dynasty that Chinese explorers reached the Cape of Good Hope a full sixty years before the Portuguese pirate-colonialists who were coming slowly down the west coast of Africa. The great ships built in China for the trip in the fourteenth century were unrivaled in the world in size and seaworthiness until the nineteenth century, but the Chinese sailors, merchants, and intelligence officers aboard those great ships, having reached southern Africa without finding anything worth trading for or any naval or political power that looked at all threatening, returned to China.
Though the Ming has been famous in the West for its insularity, it was a lively, creative society. It is renowned for its landscape painting in a variety of styles and for its vibrantly beautiful ceramics. Among the Chinese it is remarked for the creation of a vibrant and forceful, Zen-influenced neo-neo-Confucianism, developed by Wang Yang-ming (1472–1579). Wang was extraordinarily successful as a troubleshooting imperial official, and his practical successes helped his democratic philosophy attract a following that continued to grow in spite of official suppression. The Ming also saw a creative revival of Zen Buddhism itself, one that left its mark on popular prose fiction, as well as on classical poetry and painting, in both the Ming and the final dynasty, the Ch’ing. The great novel Hsi Yu Chi, offered in an expertly condensed English translation as Monkey by the master translator of Asian literature Arthur Waley, is both a delightfully humorous picaresque novel and a successful allegorical treatment of themes common to both Zen and Wang Yang-ming’s Confucian thought.
But for all my efforts to assure you of its vitality, as you might have already guessed, the Ming was not a great period for poetry. No Ming poet appears in Robert Payne’s The White Pony, the bestselling English-language anthology of Chinese poetry of the twentieth century, and very little is to be found in its closest competitor, the much larger and still popular Doubleday anthology Sunflower Splendor. But the best of Ming poetry reflects the thought of the times. It is lively, humorous, and intellectually challenging. The poets I’ve chosen to represent the Ming include a Confucian martyr, a madman, a monk (maybe the greatest Zen monk-poet and scholar-commentator of any dynasty), and four extremely talented and, as usual, nearly anonymous women. We know these women’s names but, so far as I can tell, nothing more about them than these beautiful little poems. I suspect all were what used to be known as ladies of the evening. As poets they are simply heroines.
Kao Ch’i (1336–1374), whom I earlier referred to as a martyr, was likely the best male poet of the Ming. His complete works might well have been more impressive if he hadn’t been beheaded, on flimsy charges, at the age of thirty-eight. The Ming was a good period to choose the anonymity of the professional fiction writer, for more reasons than one. The madman is Hsu Wei (1521–1593). The brilliant and strange quatrains of this extremely brilliant and very strange painter, poet, dramatist, wife murderer (he actually served seven years in prison), and apparently sometimes effective officer of state were translated by my friend Jim Cryer under a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Aside from Hui Neng and his five main disciples in eighthcentury (T’ang) China, Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546–1623) is without doubt the most influential Zen monk in the history of the transmission of Zen (Ch’an) Buddhism. As abbot of a famous monastery, he was a player in Ming politics, and though he lacks a beheading to prove his commitment, he did spend time in prison and in exile. It seems ridiculous to expect such a man in such a time to be a poet at all, much less a great one, but he was. Part of the possible paradox is explained by the fact that he clearly had a wonderful self-effacing sense of humor: the “Han Shan” in his name is definitely meant to refer to the madman poet-bodhisattva Han Shan of the T’ang, but the character used to produce the Han syllable in pronouncing the name includes the word for “to dare” above the word for “heart-and-mind” followed by the word mountain, the same character that makes the Shan in Han Shan’s name. Han-shan Te-ch’ing borrows the glory of his already vastly famous predecessor and adds a daring heart, but as it turns out the character I just described means “silly” or even “stupid.” Making his selfapplied name all the sillier is the fact that Te-ch’ing literally means “virtuous prince,” giving us Stupid Mountain Virtuous Prince in English.
Jim Cryer’s translation of Han-shan Te-ch’ing’s quatrain set reveals each poem to be a separate facet of the infinitely faceted jewel of Buddhist enlightenment. Not Wang Wei nor Han Shan wrote a better poem than this.
The Ch’ing was the second and the longer of China’s two conquest dynasties. The Manchus, tough horse barbarians of the rich area northeast of China, regarded themselves as heirs to a kingdom in north China their ancestors had occupied in the closing years of the Sung, before they were unceremoniously tossed out by the Mongols. They admired the material luxury of Chinese civilization, and the capacity for the maintenance of it that was displayed by the Confucian bureaucracy, so after a historical accident and their own ferocity gave them dominion over China, they employed classically trained Chinese officials to perform all governing functions except the highest. Thus, for three centuries the Chinese official class were, however they rationalized it, collaborators, tools of an alien conqueror. It is no surprise that there is even less good poetry produced by this class than by its counterpart in Ming. I offer work by a Ming loyalist, Ku Yen-wu; by an “outsider” (maybe only after he bumped into the Manchu version of the glass ceiling), Yuan Mei; and by two Zen monks, one of whom was known for his anti-Manchu sentiments and the other of whom, like Yuan Mei, was also an outsider. Finally, I offer two poems by a fine poet, Fan Tseng-hsiang (1846–1931), an official who served the Manchus and the common people under his control honestly, living a lively life well into the republican period of the twentieth century.
Of these poets, it is seems surprising that the best two, Yuan Mei and the monk Ching An, are certainly among the best of all the classical Chinese poetic tradition. Both are outstanding for their mastery of classical forms and their willingness to use those forms to record the realities of their lives in a language that made classical poetry available to ordinary people. Both poets, a century apart, realized that the millions of readers of popular fiction were a potential audience for classical poetry; and so, unlike the majority of “classical” poets of the period, both refused merely to imitate the great poetry of the ancients, choosing rather to put classical techniques at the service of vernacular language, in order to reach the people, always the intended audience for wen. It’s nice of them to have let me end this survey on other than a dying fall.
A Lone Falcon above the Buddha Hall of the Temple of Universal Purity
From the house I just rented, you can see the temple,
gold and blue-green jade, before my broken down hut:
every day I watch the temple's flocks of pigeons,
perched or nesting, feasting even in this famine year.
Carved eaves and painted walls are covered with bird droppings,
and even the heads and shoulders of the Buddhas . . .
The monks wouldn't dare loose an arrow at them.
Then suddenly, the falcon, cruel claws spread,
and crows caw, magpies screech, and mynah birds cry out.
The raging falcon, coming on, catches the scent of flesh.
The falcon's heart is hot and hard: he fears no flock.
In an instant he's crushed a bird's head, and the rest flee in panic.
The dead bird's falling, but before it reaches earth,
flashing wings, a whirlwind dives to catch it,
and standing alone on the rooftop, tears it apart,
ripping the flesh, pecking out the liver, letting the guts drop away.
Scavengers, artless schemers, cowards all:
circle, aching to come close, their hungering eyes transfixed by the scene.
Soon enough the falcon's satisfied; he flies away.
In the struggle for the leavings you can't tell kites from crows.
A crowd of kids stood pointing. Folks on the street just laughed.
I chanted this poem as I stood by the autumn river.
“Where I gaze”
Where I gaze, the rain is ending
and the clouds break up,
as I lean at the rail in anxious silence
seeing off the last of autumn’s glow.
The evening scene is lovely enough
to chill an ancient poet into sadness,
and though the touch of wind and rain is light,
the duckweed gradually grows older.
In the moonlit frost the wu-t’ung’s
leaves whirl yellow.
Giving love is taking pain:
Where are you now?
The misty waters: vast, and vague.
Writing or drinking, it’s hard to forget . . .
How many nights alone beneath the clouded moon?
Again the changes, stars and frost, seas broad,
the heavens far, and no way home.
At dusk we gaze at one another
Swallows pair, as I depend on letters.
I point into the evening sky, but
there is no returning boat.
At dusk we gaze at one another,
in the sound of the swans’ cry,
standing till the slanting sun is set.
“On the road to Ch’ang-an”
On the road to Ch’ang-an my horse goes slowly.
In the tall willows a confusion of cicada cries.
Slanting sun beyond the isles,
and winds of autumn on the plain. Only
where the heavens hang,
the view cut off.
The clouds go back, but
gone, they leave no track.
Where is the past?
Unused to indulgence, a little
wine’s no consolation.
It’s not
as it was
when I was young.
“A leaf this boat”
A leaf this boat, its light sail rolled
lies moored by the Ch’u’s south bank.
As dusk descends on the lonely wall, the post horn
draws mournful notes like those of a Tartar whistle.
The waters vast,
wild geese on flat sand
settle, startled, scatter.
Mist gathers in the cold woods,
the painted screen is spread,
horizon’s far, the mountains small
like faintly traced eyebrows.
Old joys cast off lightly,
I’m here to seek an official post
but weary of this journeying
and the waning year.
The manners and the sights of this strange place
are desolate and mournful,
the eyes despair,
the capital’s far away,
the towers of Ch’in cut off,
the soul of a traveler dismayed.
The fragrant grass spreads in
empty vastness
and the evening glow spreads
no news of her,
a few broken clouds
far off.
“By the lake the bright red bridge”
By the lake the bright red bridge
sounds with the wheels of painted carriages.
The surge of spring is in the stream
and spring’s clouds, like desire, rise,
yet the water’s green as glass and polished clean,
a mirror clear of anything of earth’s.
Drunk, and on the road, I am
bound in floating threads of spring.
Blossom hidden, a bird calls the traveler back.
The sun slants away as I return.
What’s to be done with spring?
“Snow clouds are suddenly the blooming cumulus of spring”
Snow clouds are suddenly the blooming cumulus of spring.
I come aware the year’s a flower fit to lead the eye
to northern branches where the plum buds brave the chill to open,
or southern shore where ripples wrinkle green as wine.
The fragrant grasses wait in turn to bloom.
I can’t endure these feelings; no place to find relief.
Before my cup, I’ll scheme a hundred schemes to bring
spring on, and won’t, though spring wounds deep, sing sadly.
“You cannot hold it . . .”
You cannot hold it . . .
Pretty girls grow old
and indolent; there is an end to spring.
When breeze is warm and moon so fine,
When breeze is warm and moon so fine,
if you can manage yellow gold, buy smiles.
Nurture the tender blossoms there, don’t wait.
No flowers to be plucked
from empty bough.
“A painted skiff with a load of wine, and West Lake’s good”
A painted skiff with a load of wine, and West Lake’s good.
Urgent pipes and quarrelsome strings,
a jade cup demands attendance.
Afloat on peaceful seas,
I’ll accept the post
of drunken sleeper.
Clouds float beneath the moving boat.
Empty waters: pure and fresh.
Look up, look down; stay, or go on.
There’s another heaven
in this lake.
“A whole life of saying, West Lake’s good!”
A whole life of saying, West Lake’s good!
Now the people press about the carriage.
Wealth and honor? Floating clouds.
Look up, look down; the rushing years:
two decades.
I come back, old white head, ancient crane.
The people of the city and the suburbs,
all strange; all new.
Who’d recognize the old coot, their master, on another day?
“At the lookout, plum blossoms scattered”
At the lookout, plum blossoms scattered,
slender willows by the bridge above the stream.
Warm winds from misty grasses stirred your reins,
parting’s sorrow rode beside you,
and yet it is not gone,
runs like a spring freshet, always on.
A small, a gentle sorrow,
yet a rush of staining tears.
The tower’s high, I won’t go near the railing.
Spring Mount’s as far as I could see from here:
you’ve gone beyond there now.
“Face turned to falling flowers; a breeze, ripples on the water”
Face turned to falling flowers; a breeze, ripples on the water.
Willows deep in mist again, a snow of catkins flying.
Rain gone, a light chill lingers.
Spring’s sorrows mix with wine, and I grow sick and weary . . .
Blue-green ruff of bedclothes, flower of the lamp,
night after night I stare unstirring:
silent, I rise and lift the screen.
Bright moon just at the pear branch tip:
a pair, apart.
Swallow Falls
Swallows return here
to cold heights to dart through flying waters.
My friends gone, my heart sees them:
a flash of pure brilliance, glistening, long.
Far-Off Mountains
Mountain colors, up close, far off,
all day going, as I gaze at the crags.
Different peaks in view from every different place:
I will not know their names.
Returning in the Moonlight to Huang-hua
Joy’s in the sound of the spring up the cliff,
evening late, the mountains quiet.
Pines, in a wash of moonlight,
a thousand peaks, a single hue.
Lang-ye Creek
Mountain snows melt, swell the stream.
I cross on a tree felled long ago.
No way to know the distance to the source:
watch it rush, from among mountain flowers.
The Old Fisherman
I
Where does the fisherman go for a drink
when his fish and his crabs are all sold?
He never sets himself a limit: just keeps on drinking till he’s drunk,
and neither he nor the bartender totes up his tab.
II
When the fisherman’s drunk, his straw cloak dances,
searching through drunkenness to find the way home.
Light skiff, the short oars akimbo:
and when he wakes up he never knows where.
III
The fisherman’s awakening: spring river’s noon.
A dream cut short by falling petals, floating silks.
Wine awakened, drunken still, and drunk, he’s still awake.
He smiles upon this world of men, both now and gone.
IV
The fisherman’s smile: a seagull floating,
lost in a river of mist and rain.
By the riverside, on horseback, an official’s come,
to hire his skiff, to ferry him on toward the south.
Spring Day
Pigeons coo: swallows feed their young without a sound.
Sun’s rays through the window westward make everything come clear.
Sobered up, at noon, and nothing to do,
except maybe take a nap in this spring sunshine.
Two Poems on Paintings by Mr. Yin
I
A Toad
Bulging eyes: who you glaring at?
Who you bluffing, puffing that white belly out.
You’d better not bother a centipede . . .
How much less a hungry snake? He’d never leave you be.
II
A Snail
Not enough spit to fill your own shell,
barely enough to keep yourself damp.
You climbed too high: you’ll never get back down again.
You’ll just end up shriveled there, stuck on the wall.
To the Abbot of the Tung-lin Monastery
Sound of the stream: his broad long tongue;
colors of the mountains, the Buddha’s body, pure.
In a single night the stream will sing
eighty-four thousand hymns of praise.
Some other day, will you lecture on them?
A Monk at Chi-hsien Temple Asked Me to Name a Hall There
Past the eye: flourishing, withering, lightning and wind,
for longevity what’s a match for red blossoms?
Where the abbot sits in meditation, he sees the hall, empty,
seeing what is, seeing what is empty: is is what is, empty.
“Wine at East Bank”
Wine at East Bank tonight, I sobered up
then started over, getting drunk again.
Got home, a little fuzzy, maybe close to three,
and the houseboy was snoring like thunder.
I knocked at my own gate, and nobody answered,
leaned on my cane and listened to the River running.
I hate it! that even this body’s not mine alone . . .
Someday I’ll give it all up.
The night moves, the breeze writes
quiet in the ripples on the water.
A little boat, leaving here and now,
the rest of my life, on the river, on the sea.
Presented to Liu Ching-wen
Lotus withered, no more umbrellas to the rain.
A single branch, chrysanthemum stands against the frost.
The good sights of the year: remember those,
and now too: citrons yellow, tangerines still green.
A Harmony to Ching Hui-shu’s Rhymes
Bells and drums from the south bank of the river.
Home? Startled, I wake from the dream.
Clouds drift: so also this world.
One moon: this is my mind’s light.
Rain comes as if from an overturned tub.
Poems too, like water spilling.
The two rivers compete to see me off;
In the treetops the slanting line of a bridge.
T’ien-ho Temple
Green tiles, red railings
from a long way off this temple’s a delight.
Take the time to take it in,
then you won’t need to look back, turning
your head a hundred times.
River’s low: rocks jut.
Towers hide in whirling mist.
Don’t roar, don’t rail
against it. The sound would just fade
in that distance.
“Rapt in wine”
Rapt in wine against the mountain rains,
dressed I dozed in evening brightness,
and woke to hear the watch drum striking dawn.
In dreams I was a butterfly,
my joyful body light.
I grow old, my talents are used up,
but still I plot toward the return . . .
to find a field and take a cottage
where I can laugh at heroes,
and pick my way among the muddy puddles
on a lakeside path.
Li Ch’ing-chao (1084–c. 1151)
(Translated by James Cryer)
“Tired of swinging”
Tired of swinging, indolent I rise,
with a slender hand, put right my hair.
The dew thick on frail blossoms,
sweat seeping through my thin robe,
and seeing my friend come,
stockings torn, gold hairpins askew,
I walk over, blushing,
lean against the door, turn my head,
grasp the dark green plums and smell them.
Thoughts from the Women’s Quarters
On her face, hibiscus lovely, an incipient smile.
Poised in flight, the jeweled duck’s beak. Incense wreathed
eyes alight, beneath the quilt she suspects
his frivolity hides a more expressive depth;
folds his elegant letter,
places it next her secret heart.
When the moon has gone,
the flowers in shadow,
I will come again.
“On the lake”
On the lake the wind brings waves
from some watery reach.
Autumn is old, red blossoms few, fragrances slight.
The water is bright with the mountain’s image.
Our intimacies, ceaseless talk, endless love.
Lotus seeds are ripe, leaves withered.
Bright dew bathes the duckweed flowers, the beach grass;
and gulls and egrets asleep on the sand
won’t watch, as if they mourn
your early leaving.
“Out the window of my little house spring colors darken”
Out the window of my little house spring colors darken.
Shadows weigh heavily on the curtains.
Keeping to my room, silent, I tune my jade lute
as distant peaks emerge against the mountains,
evening hastens, a fine wind blowing rain dallies
in the shadows as the pear blossoms are about to die,
and I can’t stop them.
“Fallen faded petals”
Fallen faded petals the color of my rouge . . .
One year, another spring,
willow catkins lightly fly, bamboo shoots become bamboo
and alone and sad I face the garden’s new-sent green.
But though he’s not done roaming, that time must be near.
In a clear dream of last year come from a thousand miles
cloudy city, winding streams, ice on the ponds
for a while I gazed on my friend.
Thoughts from the Women’s Quarters
Utter stillness in my room, the inch of my heart
yielding to a thousands threads of sorrow,
for the spring I loved, the spring now gone.
A few drops of rain worrying the blossoms
as I lean a while on the railing,
the knot of love, not unwound.
Oh, where is he?
Day after day, flowers fading, my gaze has slipped
from the road he’ll come.
Separation
Red lotus fragrance gone to autumn’s pale bamboo,
I lightly free these silken robes,
going in my orchid boat.
There in the clouds someone’s sent a loving note,
in lines of returning geese,
and as the moon fills my western chamber,
as petals dance over the flowing stream
again I think of you,
the two of us living, a sadness apart
a hurt that can’t be removed.
Yet when my gaze comes down,
my heart stays up.
Late Spring
Last night rain spattered, the wind was violent.
Even deep sleep has not dispersed the lingering wine
and when I ask, as he rolls the curtains up,
Still is my begonia as before, do you know, do you know?
he replies,
The green leaves flourish, the red blossom fades.
Drunken Villagers
The guest is drunk
and the host, and the boy,
and they sing, and they dance, and they laugh.
Who cares if you’re thirty or fifty or eighty,
you bow politely, and he bows, and I . . .
No boisterous strings or mad flutes here to rush us.
We drink with the red rolling sun
till he falls in the west,
and pound time on our plates and our saucers and bowls
till they break.
Lazy Cloud’s Nest II
If someone came what would I do,
dozing here with my clothes on?
Completely at ease, feeling frisky . . .
Human life? What can you say?
Rank is above me a bit.
Wealth, I don’t need it . . .
Ha ha, you laugh . . .
I laugh, ha ha.
Knowing Enough III
Flourishing and withering are fated.
Stop coveting, stop plotting.
Simply approach the thing in the cup.
Don’t tell me Li Po’s a sage.
Don’t speak of Liu Ling’s tomb.
Wine won’t seep down
through the earth of their graves.
Bottle Gourd
Wine new strained, a gourd of spring wine on the island
where the cherry apple blooms.
A gourd unopened, yet its fragrant meaning clear . . .
I honor mounds of malt,
and snub the aristocracy.
Merry again . . .
This dreamscape’s empty, false.
Chuang Chou dreamed he was a butterfly,
dreaming he was Chuang.
At Ease in the Mountains
Moved to the peak of Ts’o-ngo Mountain:
sharp-witted woodsman,
but here the trees are never in flower,
leaves and branches in the wind and rain.
My friends all sing of the “Return”;
why go in the first place, I ask.
Here, outside the door, ten thousand cloudy mountains.
This place you cannot buy with blood-smeared cash.
Kuan Han-ch’ing (c. 1220–c. 1300)
Not Bowing to Old Age
I tease the clustering blossoms from the wall,
snap off the greening willow:
red as yet unopened bud,
slimmest, and most supple wand . . .
I’m a dandy! It’s a rake I am,
trusting this hand that takes
the flower and the bough,
that I may bear the willow’s withering, the flower’s fall.
Half a life I’ve picked as I pleased,
half a life lain flower-eyed
entwined in tender limbs.
Commander in the dandies’ army,
headman of the rakish hordes,
when I’m red-faced old I’ll be the same,
spending my time on the flowers,
losing my cares in wine:
drinking and eating, carousing.
Punning and joking and playing with words,
I’m so smooth, just ripe,
with the rhymes and their rules!
There’s no place in my heart
for mourning.
My companion’s a girl with a silver guitar . . .
she tunes before the silver stage
and leans with a smile toward the door.
My companion’s a spirit of jade.
I grasp her jade hand and jade shoulder
as she mounts my tower of jade.
My companion’s “the Gold Hairpin Maiden.”
She sings “The Gold Lock of Hair,”
offering the golden goblet up,
filling the floating golden cup.
You say I’m old, that I grow cold . . .
Don’t think it!
I’m center stage, the boss,
trimmer than ever,
still slim and bold:
Commander-in-chief of the brocade troops
that throng this flowery encampment,
and I travel the districts
and wander the land for my sport.
Now your modern-day wastrel is nothing but that . . .
a pile of straw, or a hole in the sand, newborn bunny set loose for the hunt.
I’m the hoary blue pheasant
always slipping the noose
artful, dodging the net.
I’ve known the tramp of cavalry horses
and survived cold arrows from ambush . . .
I’ll never fall behind.
Don’t be telling me, “Comes middle age,
the game is up”: I won’t go gentle to my dotage.
I’m a bronze bean with a pure bell tone.
Steam me: I won’t get tender.
Boil me: I won’t be cooked.
Pound me: You can’t make me bean paste.
Roast me: I’ll never pop!
Who told you infants you could come in here
where the harlot weaves her brocade net
a thousand stories high, which can be hacked,
but not hacked out, chopped, but never down,
which may be loosened, is never quite undone,
may be discarded, but not for long?
I play beneath some storied garden’s moon.
My drink is fabled Kaifeng wine.
My current love is a Loyang flower,
and I only pick the willows from Chang Terrace!
I can play go, and I can play football.
I’m a hunter (and a wag), I can
dance, and I can sing, and I
can play the flute. I spread
a rare table, and chant a fine poem.
(And I’m great at chess)
You can knock out my teeth and break my jaw.
You can cripple my legs and rip off my arms:
let heaven lay all these curses on me,
and I still won’t stop.
Except old Yama, the king of Hell
comes to call on me himself (and brings his fiends to fetch me),
when my soul turns to dirt,
and my animal shell falls straight into Hell,
then, and only then, I’ll quit this flowered path
I ramble on.
“Great Virtue” Song
Toot once, strum once . . .
give us a song to
Great Virtue.
Enjoy yourself, relax,
stop setting snares.
Get delicate
and follow
where that leads you.
Go find yourself a place to flop and flop there.
Autumn
This autumn scene’s worth words’ paint:
red leaves fill up the mountain stream.
The path through the pines is set just so.
Chrysanthemums glow gold around the eastern hedge.
I raise this very proper goblet, drain the dregs.
The commoner who offers you the cup’s
fit for high post, but what’s the use . . .
Get back . . .
I’ll study T’ao Ch’ien, learn to be drunk
as he was.
When you’re always drunk,
what’s past is no problem.
You’ll ponder when you’re not,
but what sense is there?
“Accomplishment” and “fame”?
I’ll pickle them, and
drown a thousand years of ups and downs
in unstrained wine.
The endless rainbow of ambition
should be doused in yeast.
Failed, I’ll laugh at Ch’u Yuan
for trying . . .
if you know music
you listen to T’ao Ch’ien.
Liu Shih-chung (fl. late Yuan)
Today one state, tomorrow another,
struggle how many risings and declines?
Try to count from the beginning through . . .
Each and every reign,
loyal and filial ministers,
wise and enlightened kings,
lie in the earth.
Stand at the peak,
let my head go naked.
In dying light weird shadows:
pine shade all confused,
clear pool almost a void.
The image of the moon drawn large.
Sea breeze: sunsets’ clouds break up.
If I fall down drunk,
don’t raise me.
Eight Little Verses: Get Back
Capped in wild flowers,
fondling a bottle of raw wine,
how could I worry?
You can’t always ride, you’ll
fast on occasion . . .
A little field, an ox, I’ll eat
till I’m full.
A will to help . . .
hand that grasps cloud.
I’m out of step, why be unbending,
flow through this banishment, why suffer?
A couple of quilts, a soft sheet, I’ll lie
till I’m warm.
Moon capped, star cloaked, going . . .
A lonely inn at All Souls . . .
No home till autumn.
Wife and child at home, secure,
I waste away.
Sadness on the couch, grief on horseback,
till I die.
Good sons, chaste wives . . .
Machines to crush the heart.
In the end you cannot flee
their dying or their change.
Wrangle for profit, or fame?
Struggle for wealth, or place?
All foolishness.
Just got a jug
and bought a fish . . .
My eyes are full of cloudy mountains
unrolling like a scroll.
No way to make poems of this . . .
fresh breeze, bright moon.
I’m just a lazy rambler,
got nothing to sell.
Got to get back.
By greening cane,
among blue pines,
bamboo’s shade, pines’ whisper . . .
there’s my hut.
The empire’s at peace
within my idle body.
I’ll tend to the paths.
I’ll plant five willows like T’ao Ch’ien.
Got to get back.
Once-lustrous hair falls out.
Fair features change.
I’d be ashamed to show
this muddy face in public,
but the garden’s scene endures
the same.
A field, a house,
get back.
Dawn, the mountain bird outside the window
calls the old man up from sleep.
Now he says, get back!
and then he says, there’s no way there from here.
Better find a shady spot
and sit down on the ground.
I’ve known glory, I’ve known shame:
I keep my mouth shut tight.
Who’s right? Who’s wrong?
I nod my head in silence,
as I ponder poems and histories.
I fold my hands, keep them clean.
I’m poor as can be,
yet elegant, and free:
the wind freely flowing . . .
Wine this morning, drunk by noon . . .
this finite cup is empty.
Some shore is promised to the turning head:
I turn and find cold sea.
Dust flies.
Suns set, moons wane:
My friends, white-haired, and few.
If wine doesn’t get me then poetry must . . .
spirit wars with spirits, poetry with wine.
All year long I idle with the breeze and moon,
a useless man.
But poems and wine, the music
of the truth within.
Ch’en Ts’ao-an (dates unknown)
Five Verses
If you have wealth,
if you own things,
and have not grief or pain,
rejoice, don’t be ungrateful.
No one lives a hundred years.
Seventy is many.
A clement man is richer than Shih Ch’ung.
Just close your eyes one morning,
and your fated turns are done.
Gold can change its master;
silver, too.
The storms of life are fierce indeed.
There’s no sense talking of them.
The crane has long legs,
the duck has short,
and they’re born beneath one heaven.
You so-called fishermen and woodsmen,
stop all that talk of what is saintly,
what is crude.
To find the way’s an aid,
to lose it’s loss.
Each is a saint;
each, a fool too.
Soft yin repays yin.
Hard yang repays yang.
Take this to your bosom or
you’ll labor, toil, hold nothing.
The wealthy man is evil omened,
one stroke of luck, and fortunes melt.
Men decay and pass away;
wealth, too.
Do you wrinkle up your brow with grief?
The saint’s prescription can cure you!
Liu Ling taught his closest friends . . .
when your bosom’s full with sadness,
when your time has come to grieve,
his message comes in self-disclosing fragrance:
to know things change is fine but
not as good as
morning, evening
drinking wine.
A worldly man, I sit
with a big glass tumbler full.
Pluck the lotus, peruse the dance, break into song.
Sing while I drink, see demons when I’m done.
All of this
so many motes of dust and chaff.
Men’s rights and wrongs? I make the best of them.
Loftiness is possible;
lowliness, that too.
Chou Wen-chih (c. 1275–c. 1350)
Two Verses
When peach blossoms open in the court . . .
oh happy, joyous, drunk.
When lotus blooms perfume the pool. . . .
oh morning, evenings, drunk.
When golden asters cluster by the hedgerow path . . .
oh falling, tumbling, drunk.
And when the wax plum on the mountainside
first blooms to herald the spring . . .
oh coming, going, drunk.
Getting drunker, getting drunker,
Drunk and sober; sober, drunk.
In spring I search the scent of bamboo
flowers by a stream, and drink . . .
in summer sail through lotus blossoms
by a willow-shrouded shore, and drink . . .
in autumn climb the aster path
to sit within a maple grove, and drink . . .
in winter snuggle by a rosy stove
in cozy hall, and drink . . .
Oh happiness, oh happiness
all four seasons, lovely scenes
and suitable for drinking.
Four Verses
Before forty I quit my job
and came to tread the way of saints and sages.
If I come out, it’s just because
I love the hills and streams.
My ears are clean . . .
My vision’s ample . . .
When you ponder it,
this is true happiness
The golden girdle girds calamity.
Purple robe robes pain.
Are they better than my briar cane and cap of straw?
I was young
and now somehow I’m old.
All of my life seems
like yesterday morning.
The glare and the shade,
the water running,
and neither is clement.
It’s better to get drunk, to sleep.
Let the sun and the moon handle rising and falling.
I’ll pretend I know nothing.
Ch’u Yuan’s “sorrow” none can explain,
yet its meaning is clear as the sun and the moon.
The sorrow remains. The man is gone . . .
to feed the shrimp and crabs of the River Hsiang.
That gentleman was simply silly.
I’ll stay in this green mountain shade,
singing wildly, and drinking till it hurts,
here’s joy that’s boundless.
I live here retired, apart
from the dust of the vulgar.
Clouds and mist, it’s peaceful.
A thousand mountains’ green surrounds the hut:
I’m the old man in the painting.
Look at this limitless beauty . . .
Could I put it down
and serve again?
Four Verses
Plucking ferns to eat in exile at Shou-yang
in vain enduring hunger,
wasn’t that just silly quibbling?
Was Ch’u Yuan’s sobriety
so much more grand than
T’ao Ch’ien’s getting drunk?
Go find yourself a shady spot,
sit idle on the ground.
Plucking ferns to eat in exile at Shou-yang
in vain enduring hunger,
wasn’t that just silly quibbling?
Was Ch’u Yuan’s sobriety
so much more grand than
T’ao Ch’ien’s getting drunk?
Go find yourself a shady spot,
sit idle on the ground.
Po Ya searched out his Chung Tzu-ch’i
to share the meaning in his music:
lute spoke to him of flowing streams and lofty hills . . .
Who knows my music so?
Go find yourself a shady spot,
sit idle on the ground.
For eagle and sparrow the same sky to fly in . . .
Jade and pebbles are both stone . . .
How to divide in highs and lows?
Who cares what’s true, what’s false?
Go find yourself a shady spot,
sit idle on the ground.
In his heart the taste of ashes . . .
Even the flavor of wine gone.
He’s broken with his love, the cup,
he’s left her bed and gone
to find himself a shady place:
sit idle on the ground
Seven Verses
Chaos—
pearl of no price,
where water’s red, the harvest.
Muddy roiled but blinding bright,
held in the hand like the hand of a lover,
divine, divines,
against what passes in this world
for clever.
No tricks,
nothing doing:
the sun and moon endure their rush
and don’t grow old.
Sail backwards?
Row against the flow?
To hell with that.
You’d better be known
for being quiet.
Who envies you
oh high and mighty,
all done up in purple
and dangling your badge of rank?
My heart’s at peace.
I’m satisfied with me.
There aren’t many in the world today
to match this crafty rascal.
Done with the world
and pure as darkness,
nothing to hold me, nothing restrain.
The old guy here within the grove,
before blue cliffs the moon’s companion,
mad and singing, drunk and dancing,
smashed, polluted, with the wine
of endless life . . .
These peaks and cliffs
are strange and rare,
blue pine and cypress all around.
It’s quiet, few men pass.
A light-hearted sadness,
to live here
distant, at leisure.
The flour’s gone sour.
The grain in the bin has gone stale.
My ladle’s busted, and even
my old begging bowl’s got a harelip
No salt, just a couple of onions . . .
Contented heart’s my portion; it’s sweeter
than the sweetmeats of the world.
Laugh if you want,
I understand.
So I’ve used up a fortune . . .
I’ve thought it over carefully,
and it doesn’t bother me.
I’ll just straggle down this road
till I’ve danced to some paradise . . .
A Walk on the East Bank of the River
Setting sun shines on half the river . . .
This time of day I take walks alone.
Sunset can deepen sadness:
but autumn purifies the poet’s heart.
Birds peck a rotting willow:
Insects cling to its dying leaves.
I still feel homesick. Why?
Now that I’ve finally come home.
The Well of the King of Wu
It is said it mirrored palace ladies
As their jade-white hands pulled the well rope . . .
flowers in the dew.
Now: the mountain’s deserted; lone monk draws water.
A jarful of cold water: for flowers made offering to the Buddha.
Hsu Wei (1521–1593)
(Translated by James Cryer)
Cloud Gate Temple/Painting Plum Trees
Floating bridge
water flowing
the snow
spits
as I wander
late in March
the buds
now green
in trees
awash
with coldness,
but the only plum blossoms
to be seen
are in my painting.
Peach Leaf Ferry
I
In a book
seeing peach leaves
I thought of you
sadly as if
you hadn’t died.
Crossing now
at Peach Leaf Ferry
I see only
the river.
II
Sad
at Peach Leaf Ferry
for the green willows
graceful, delicate.
Ten feet of water,
five gallons of mud,
and their lovely reflections
can’t be seen.
III
Sad
at Peach Leaf Ferry
confused reflections
of her face.
Ten feet of water
five gallons of mud
and her hairpin’s fallen
where?
Painting Bamboo
Cheap silk
from Eastern Wu
dull and damp,
and too the pot
is bare
of sizing,
but when my brush
sweeps through
the shadow
of a solitary phoenix
here’s silken rain
on the Hsiang Chiang River
and pale mists.
Dark Stream/An Album Leaf
Gold splashed
on a little fan,
the half full
moon.
In light charcoal
a dark stream
sketched,
a stream rushing
without sound,
just like
a lute
with the strings
unbound.
Crabs
Night
at the window
talking.
Fall River crabs
so plump
they deserve
a little drink.
Think I’ll go
swap
a painting.
These few drops, these
tears of autumn on my heart.
I dare not let the first one fall
lest autumn’s river well
on endlessly.
Farewell
My boat goes west, yours east.
Heaven’s a wind for both journeys.
From here, the clouds and the mountains,
the horizon’s vague.
A thousand miles . . .
My heart, a dark swan,
confused in that vastness.
Since he’s gone, he’s gone.
There’s no one else for this vessel of mine.
Wine, they say, melts sorrow.
How many times?
Hsu P’ien-p’ien (dates unknown)
Today you leave for Chiang-k’ou,
five days on Ch’ang-chou.
Alas, that these tears I shed for you
can’t flow with the river beyond there.
Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546–1623)
(Translated by James Cryer)
Mountain Living: Twenty Poems
I
Down beneath the pines,
a few thatched huts.
Before my eyes,
everywhere blue mountains,
and where the sun and moon
restless rise and fall,
this old white cloud
idly comes and goes.
II
When plum petals among the snows
first spring free
from the ends of night,
a dark fragrance flies
to the cold lantern
where I sit alone
and suddenly storms
my nostrils wide.
III
Through a few splinters of
white cloud, motionless,
the Buddha wheel bright moon
comes flying
to accompany me
in my mountain stillness . . .
and I smile up at it
above the dirty suffering world.
IV
It only took a single flake
to freeze my mind in the snowy night,
a few clangs to smash my dreams
among the frosted bells,
and the stove’s night fire fragrance
too is melted away,
yet at my window the moon
climbs a solitary peak.
V
Through a face full of clear frostiness
raw cold bites.
Through a head overstuffed with white hair
a gale whistles.
And over the world from flowers of emptiness
shadows fall . . .
but from my eyes the spells of darkness
have completely melted.
VI
In the sh sh murmur of the spring
I hear
moon clear, the primal Buddha pulse
come from the West
with motionless tongue
eternally speak.
How can I be sad again?
How strange.
VII
In the dark valley
the orchid scent is overwhelming
and at midnight the moon’s form
so gracefully sways by,
like a sudden flick of the
stag tail whisk . . .
reasonless it
smashes my meditation.
VIII
In its Buddha flash I forgot all,
reason quieted in contemplation
when an orphan brilliance glared on
my meditation, startling me
and I saw, off through the void,
lightning strike.
But it wasn’t the same
as that firefly beneath my eyes.
IX
Clouds scatter the length of the sky,
rain passes over.
The snow melts in the chill valley
as Spring is born
and though I feel my body’s like
the rushing water,
I know my mind’s not
as clear as the ice.
X
I’m so rotted out
I should pity these weak bones.
But look! My consciousness is reborn,
my mind strengthens,
day and night my back
is like an iron rod.
Constant and pervasive is my meditation,
like an evening’s frost
XI
In the empty valley
all filth is wiped away,
but this bit of lazy cloud
stays on.
For company I have the pine branches’
twitching stag tail whisks,
which is almost enough deer
to make a herd.
XII
Words,
an enchanted film across the eyes.
Ch’an,
floating dust on the mind.
Yet all ins and outs become one
with one twirl of the lotus
and the chilocosm
whole in my body.
XIII
A quiet night
but the bell toll will not stop
and on my stone bed dreams and thoughts
alike seem unreal.
Opening my eyes
I don’t know where I am,
until the pine wind sounds
fill my ears.
XIV
Like some pure clarity
distilled out of a jeweled mirror,
the Spring waters
fill the many lakes,
reflect up into my eyes
here on Mt. Lu,
and the moon above my forehead
becomes a bright pearl.
XV
Six on the lotus clock?
The stick’s too short
and on the incense piece . . .
where’s the century mark?
Day and night are truly constant
and stop nowhere.
To know immortality in the morning
hold in your hand the womb of the flower to be.
XVI
Though a slice of cloud
seals the valley mouth
a thousand peaks
scratch open its emptiness
and in the middle
are a few thatched huts
where hidden deep is
this white-haired mountain man.
Anyway, who ever heard
of a lazy transcendental?
XVII
What a pity the blue mountains
go on forever.
This old white hair is petrified
of the time to come,
and plans to burn himself out
amongst the inns down in the dust.
Anyway, who ever heard
of a lazy transcendental?
XVIII
On the mountainside,
mournfully sipping the night rain
to the pine sounds,
throat choking on clear frost,
gone to beg food,
this Buddha’s priest is a tired bird
and the moth brow crescent
moon arises new made up.
XIX
The world shines
like a watery moon.
My body and mind
glisten like porcelain
though I see the ice melt,
the torrents descend,
I will not know
the flowers of spring.
XX
Outside my door
blue mountains’ bouquet.
Before my window
yellow leaves rustle.
I sit in meditation
without the least word,
and look back to see
my illusions completely gone.
Ching-wei
The world is full of iniquities,
why do you struggle so in vain,
always urging on that tiny body,
forever carrying sticks and stones?
“I will fill up the Eastern Sea.
My body may fail; my aim won’t change.
Until the great sea’s filled
my heart can’t know surcease.”
Alas, don’t you see
the many birds with sticks and stones among the Western Hills?
Magpies come, swallows go, all building their own nests
Eight Feet
Eight feet tall, the lonely mast on this leaflet of a skiff.
With the wind, upon the water, it’s carried me to this autumn.
We’ve been to White Emperor Town to search for our late ruler,
then east of the river to ask about one Chung-mou.
Even in the sea, the fish and dragons know our anguish;
in the hills, the trees wail forth their grief.
I trust you’ll speak no more of “rise and fall”;
the boatman of another year is white-haired now.
Talking Art
In painting it’s catching the “spirit” and “essence.”
In poems that’s “nature” and “feelings.”
An elegant dragon, with its life’s breath gone?
Better a rat, with some scurry left in him.
Climbing the Mountain
I burned incense, swept the earth, and waited
for a poem to come . . .
Then I laughed, and climbed the mountain,
leaning on my staff.
How I’d love to be a master
of the blue sky’s art:
see how many sprigs of snow-white cloud
he’s brushed in so far today.
Spring Day III
A hermit’s gate is made of the stuff of brooms,
but sweep as it may, the clouds won’t stay away.
So up through the clouds, for sun I came,
with wine, to this high tower.
At evening, the sun declined
to come on down the mountain with me.
“Tomorrow,” I asked,
“you coming, or not?”
So Be It
Blossoms of apricot will perish,
sound of the rain grow quiet.
Moss in the footprints on the path,
its green reflected on my gown.
Wind’s fierce,
can’t keep the little window shut. . . .
Fallen flowers, pages of poems
together fly away.
Ginseng
I love a good logical chat about ethics,
but I won’t sit still for a sermon.
Purple Mountain Ginseng’s best:
it works, and it doesn’t taste so bad.
Speaking My Mind
I
When the clouds come the mountain
“ontologically dismanifests.”
When they go (I guess) it exhibits its
phenomenological “mountainness.”
Do you suppose
the mountain knows?
II
Oh, perhaps the fabled P’an Ku made the world,
but before the Farmer Spirit had tilled one field,
bored to death with the time on his hands,
the Great Fu Hsi brushed the single stroke
of the first written word. He’s the one
who really got things going.
III
To learn to be without desire
you must desire that.
Better to do as you please:
sing idleness.
Floating clouds, and water running . . .
where’s their source?
In all the vastness of the sea and sky,
you’ll never find it.
Laughing at People Who Complain about the Heat
Don’t complain of the hot summer winds,
they’ll blow themselves away, at last.
And don’t just sit there waiting for the autumn’s cool.
That’s a fine sure way to shorten your life.
Late Gazing, Looking for an Omen as the Sun Goes
I
The window’s dark. Roll back the curtain’s waves.
What’s to be done about sunsets?
Climb up and stand in some high place,
lusting for a little more twilight.
II
From a thousand houses’ cooking fumes,
the Changes weave a single roll of silk.
Whose house, fire still unlit, so late?
Old crow knows whose, and why.
III
Golden tiles crowd, row on row:
men call this place the Filial Tombs.
Across that vastness, eyes wander:
grand pagoda: one wind-flickering flame.
The Bell
Ancient temple, monks all gone,
the Buddha’s image fallen.
The single bell
hangs high in evening’s glow.
Sad, so
full of music . . .
Ah, just one little tap!
But no one dares.
Near Hao-pa
(I saw in the mist a little village of a few tiled roofs, and joyfully admired it)
There’s a stream, and there’s bamboo,
there’s mulberry, and hemp.
Mist-hid, clouded hamlet,
a mild, a tranquil place.
Just a few tilled acres.
Just a few tiled roofs.
How many lives would I
have to live, to get
that simple?
Gone Again to Gaze on the Cascade
A whole life without speaking,
“a thunderous silence”
that was Wei-ma’s way.
And here is a place where no monk can preach.
I understand now what T’ao Ch’ien, enlightened,
said he couldn’t say.
It’s so clear, here, this water,
my teacher.
Chang-chou
I’m not such a goose that I live on the water . . .
but day after day my light sail slides by the shallows.
Even the reeds know the Great Official’s here,
following the winds of custom,
they see me off
with a boatful of blossoms.
Willow Flowers
Willow flowers, snowflakes, the same . . .
they’re feckless.
No matter whose garden they fall in,
they’ll always follow the wind away.
Finished with a Long Parting Poem to Mr. Li, I Went On to Write This Shorter One
Life is harder than our dreams,
but both, at last, come down to chance.
Poems repay no debts . . .
They may but show a little of the heart.
When I turned to look back at the river and the hills,
words of a poem from The Poetry Classic came to me
“Lo, he is right in the middle of the waters” . . .
and thinking of you, I chanted them once,
and then once again.
In Idleness
Rain gone, and one cicada sings.
On the empty veranda I sit, full of feeling.
“Men waste away,” the wild geese cry.
“Blossoms age,” the bees hum.
The winding waters song’s the joy of solitude:
lofty is for mountains, not for men.
At last to lead:
my wife, my children, by the hand
into some wilderness
to till my own small kingdom.
Ah Chen
Ah Chen is ten, her hair still in pigtails . . .
She’s read both Odes and the History,
(and her needlework’s just fine).
Her mother scolds her, while her father smiles:
for the scion of whose House, I wonder,
did we take this burden on?;
Cold Night
Cold night, reading,
forgetting sleep,
The embroidered coverlet has lost its fragrance,
and the brazier’s cold.
My lady swallows her anger, but
snatches the lamp away
and asks me,
“Do you know what time it isx? ”
Reading
When I shut a book,
I can be at ease.
If I open one, I agonize.
Books are long, and days are short,
feeling like an ant
who wants to move a mountain,
or a man who waits for dawn light
with a candle in his hand.
Of ten I read, I might remember one.
The more’s the pain,
that in a thousand years
there’ll be more books, no end.
So if I wish I were a spirit-being,
or pray Heaven for a few more years . . .
it’s not that I want to dine on dew,
or wander fairylands . . .
every word that’s written,
to read each one, that’s all.
On a Painting of a White-Haired Old Man
Who’d paint a white-haired ancient?
I smile. I’d rather be a duck.
If you’re born with your head snow-white already,
no one can laugh and shout, “You’re getting old!”
Sixty
Each year as the year day’s passed
I’ve cocked my ear to hear
the fireworks pop, so sharp, so clear,
all through the night till dawn.
This year I didn’t listen,
fearing the cock crow’s news:
my sixtieth year.
The noise has died now,
to the sound of a page of the calendar turning.
A little time’s left. Maybe, just a scrap?
The cock, at least, shows sympathy,
so slow to crow for me.
That’s fine. I’ll just go on
being fifty-nine.
Remembering
The years, their months
turn, grave and slow, their
fall and spring, again.
Mountain flowers, mountain leaves and
each time’s new.
Sometimes I sit alone
and smile upon the child I was,
in memory now distant
and a friend.
Conscious of Withering
“Oh, verily, I wither,” said Confucius of himself,
and even a thousand of his words
aren’t worth one picture of me.
Teeth falling out, the hair at my temples
like feathers molting.
I drag my staff among the flowers,
squint right beneath the lamp at normal print,
inclined to forget what I know I ought to note,
grown accustomed to blithering on, and on, and on.
“Ah, how it passes, it passes away,” the stream
of life, I heard the Master say.
And of the saying, “the older the better,”
now that’s a stupid one.
Memories
Young, I loved to read good books:
word for word I memorized whole chapters.
Old, I love to read good books:
to pass the time, to follow where my interest leads me.
Although it’s true I forget half I read,
what passes my eyes is all mine.
The flavors in a book I savor,
better by far than any vintage wine.
Unable to Sleep, I Was Inspired to Write This
Old, spirit shriveled, sleepless nights,
no way of knowing how many dawns I’ve seen.
If there was anyone to beg,
I’d beg a trip to Dreamland.
I’d rather dream one single dream
than live another year.
Answer to a Letter Inquiring about My Health
When a man’s about to quit this world
the changes in his habits often show it.
The drinker may perhaps set down the cup,
the wanderer’s step grow slow.
It’s been my nature to love company:
let anyone show up, we’re off and gabbing.
But since this last illness began,
a single peep and I cover my ears . . .
to the point that when the wife and children
come to pay respects, I wave them off, and nothing more.
I know that’s ominous: this old body’s clearly nearly done for.
So who would guess how I dote on my old writings;
happily, delightedly, there’s one vice I still enjoy.
I made a poem in the middle of my illness,
a loud chanting that the night couldn’t stop.
Does this line here take a “push” or a “knock”?
I’m Chia Tao once again, revising every line
from head to tail. All I really want
is to make every phrase come alive, I
won’t countenance one dead word.
Well . . . maybe the fact that this habit remains
with this vestige of a body
means there’s some time left to it too.
Last Poem: Goodbye to My Garden
Was I no more than some fairy-being,
strange beast from the Sutra of Ceylon,
arisen and set free to play
in Hsiao-ts’ang’s summit garden?
Did I not know that garden’s guests
of poems and lutes, wine and songs
would also hear the gong of time,
the last dripped drop of the water clock?
My eye roams the towers and pavilions,
and I know these lines are my farewell.
This mountain full of birds will stay,
forever wound and bound in its flowers.
Long ago an Immortal chose to return
to his home in the form of a crane,
and was almost shot down by a lad with a sling.
If I ever come back to this Paradise,
I’ll remember to be careful.
Dusk of Autumn: Writing What My Heart Embraces
I am the orphan cloud: no trace left behind.
Come south three times now to listen to the frosty bell.
When men see geese flying, they think of letters home.
Even the mountains grieve at the fall: they’re wearing a sickly face.
But fine phrases are there too, to be plucked from the sad heart of autumn,
and many an ancient poet ran into one on the road.
I’m ashamed I’ve yet to realize my monk’s oath:
the fault’s in this load of blue green hills I carry,
many tens of thousands strong.
Facing Snow and Writing What My Heart Embraces
At Mount Ssu-ming in the cold in the snow,
half a lifetime’s bitter chanting.
Beard hairs are easy to pluck out one by one:
a poem’s words are hard to put together.
It’s pure vanity, to vent the heart and spleen;
words and theories, sometimes, aren’t enough.
Loneliness, loneliness; that’s my everyday affair.
The soughing winds pass on the night bell sound.
To Show You All, on the First Morning of the Year
A thousand thousand worlds, a single breath,
one turn of the Great Potter’s Wheel.
The withered tree blossoms in a spring beyond illusion.
Pop!
The firecrackers bring me back: the laugh’s on me.
This year’s man
is last year’s man.
Beating the Heat at Jade Lake
West of the painted bridge east of the willow’s shade:
ten li of flat lake: water touching, holding, sky.
Not like it is among men, bitter at the burning heat.
Monk’s robe sits idle: lotus blossoms: breeze.
Night Sitting
The hermit doesn’t sleep at night:
in love with the blue of the vacant moon.
The cool of the breeze
that rustles the trees
rustles him too.
Over King Yu Mountain with a Friend
Sun sets, bell sounds, the mist.
Headwind on the road, the going hard.
Evening sun at Cold Mountain.
Horses tread men’s shadows.
On a Painting
A pine or two,
three or four bamboo,
cliffside cottage, long, solitary, silence.
Only floating clouds come to visit.
Moored at Maple Bridge
Frost white across the river, waters reaching toward the sky.
All I’d hoped for’s lost in autumn’s darkening.
I cannot sleep, a man adrift, a thousand miles
alone, among the reed flowers: but the moonlight fills the boat.
At Hu-k’ou, Mourning for Kao Po-tzu
Though he was young, Kao
was the crown of Su-chou and Hu-k’ou.
It was only to see if he was still here
that I came today to this place . . .
found a chaos of mountains.
No word. This evening sun. This loneliness.
Laughing at Myself I
Cold cliff, dead tree, this knobby-pated me . . .
still thinks there’s nothing better than a poem.
I mock myself, writing in the dust, and
damn the man who penned the first word
and steered so many astray.
Laughing at Myself II
Slices of flesh made burnt offering
to the Buddha . . .
Just so, I came to know myself
a ball of mud, dissolving in the water.
I had ten fingers. Now, eight remain.
Did I really think I could become a Buddha
one slice at a time?
Written at White Cloud Ch’an Hall Beside West Lake
Where white clouds are deep, Thunder Peak lies hidden.
A few chill plums, a sprinkle of red rain.
After a fast, oh so slowly . . .
the mud in my mind settles out.
The image in the pool before the hut:
fallen from that far-off bell.
Passing Rushfields
Where the willow shade is deep . . .
the water chestnut flourishes.
Endless, silver sands . . .
where the tide’s retreated.
Thatched booths with wine flags flapping
tell me there’s a market town nearby.
A whole mountain of red leaves:
a girl child carries kindling.
Passing the Birthplace of Cheng Ch’eng-kung’s Last Loyal Defender of the Ming
A passerby points far off and says,
“That’s Lord Cheng’s Rock.”
White sand, green pines, beside the setting sun
as far as you can see,
how many loyal sons of China left?
Monk’s robe, and tears, bow down
before the memorial stone.
Headed East, Good-bye to an Elder Brother
Rivertown’s a picture
run from our overturned cups.
Together just a moment, this time:
how many times harder to part?
From here the lone boat, the night,
bright moon.
Parting the clouds, who’ll gaze out
from high upon the tower?
Random Verses from a Boat I
Three days, and we’ve changed boats twice.
Now, they say, it’s Hsi-ch’uan County.
Smoke from kitchen fires is thick.
The city walls in good repair again.
We hear the county’s government is all set right,
and the common folk applaud the magistrate’s decisions.
On the eastern shore the grain grows glossy green.
A hundred pennies buys a peck of flour . . .
In Chengchou, this same river burst its dikes.
Both groves and marshes are full of homeless folk:
there, they’re geese, grounded, or looking more like stranded fish,
while here the people are safe as swallows nesting in the eaves.
These are both the people of Yu-chou;
but thirty miles divides calamity from joy.
Like fruits of the same grove,
sweet and sour growing side by side.
Here many are at peace, at leisure;
there, the toilers, that eternal moan.
Random Verses from a Boat II
Before dawn, we passed Chiang-k’ou town,
waters swift as arrows flying.
With the River of Stars astern on the right,
my boat passed the most marvelous sight on the left:
Standing alone in the flow of the river,
a peak like a lotus, elegant, the single flower.
And then these little islets:
green conch shells in a silver bowl . . .
Long ago I fell in love with Little Orphan,
I’ve sailed past it at least ten times.
a flowered islet hung amid the flow,
wreathed all about in misty waves.
This little peak so much like that:
call it Taoist magic, Soul Travel, brought it here for us!
It’s five years since I left Chiu-kiang,
and now Heaven sends its best sight here!
Too bad there’s no way to anchor;
swift shallows rush the light barge down.
I turn, gaze back upon the coiffure of the mist,
at Heaven’s edge, its vast and supple grace!