(832–912)
Bad Government
SLEET and rain, as if the pot were boiling.
Winds whack like the crack of an axe.
An old man, an old old man,
at sunset, crept into my hut.
He sighed. He sighed as if to himself,
“These rulers, so cruel. Why, tell me
why they must steal till we starve,
then slice the skin from our bones?
For a song from some beauty,
they’ll go back on sworn words;
for a song from some tart,
they’ll tear down our huts;
for a sweet song or two,
they’ll slaughter ten thousand like me,
like you. Weep as you will,
let your hair turn white,
let your whole clan go hungry . . .
no good wind will blow,
no gentle breeze
begin again.
Lord Locust Plague and Baron Bandit Bug,
one east, one west, one north, one south.
We’re surrounded.”
[J.P.S.]
Written in the Mountains
A MOUNTAIN’S a palace
for all things crystalline and pure:
there’s not a speck of dust
on a single one of all these flowers.
When we start chanting poems like madmen
it sets all the peaks to dancing.
And once we’ve put the brush to work
even the sky becomes mere ornament.
For you and me the joy’s in the doing
and I’m damned if I care about “talent.”
But if, my friend, from time to time
you hear sounds like ghostly laughter,
it’s all the great mad poets, dead,
just dropping in to listen.
[J.P.S.]
A Hundred Sorrows
A HUNDRED sorrows under a single sail:
wind and waves, poles of the line of vision,
birds sunk in the mist, and the mountain with them.
All the color of the south, still cold next to the skin.
Getting past this place, this autumn of the heart,
one starts to know what hard traveling means.
The evening sun lingers a moment on the sandbar.
I turn my head with one long sigh.
[J.P.S.]
Leaving It to You
SELF evident, truth mistakes no thing.
But my heart’s a long way from there
and nothing’s very clear.
Yellow gold is almost burned up
by my desire.
White hair grows beside the fire.
Bitter indecision: choose This, or maybe That.
Even the spirit speaks in riddles
and makes it hard to harvest
the essence of a single day.
Catch the wind while you tether shadows.
Faith, or a man who’ll stand by his word, is
all there is. There is no disputing.
[J.P.S.]
On Running into the Taoist Master “In Emptiness”
SO, say my way differs from yours.
We both have old men’s hair and beards.
They say words can kill faith.
I like to arrange spring blossoms in a rough old funeral jar.
[J.P.S.]
Seeing a Friend Off Toward Hsi-k’ou
WILD geese go like leaves down the sky.
How should that be easy
for the traveler to hear?
A thousand mountains,
ten thousand streams,
where can we meet again?
Our faces won’t last like jade.
Life’s more like clouds.
If your way takes you
to the temple
of the Third Patriarch of Zen,
make us all one:
lay an offering by the grave.
[J.P.S.]