CH’IN SONG IN CLEAR NIGHT

The moon’s risen. Birds have settled in.

Now, sitting in these empty woods, silent

mind sounding the borders of idleness,

I can tune the ch’in’s utter simplicities:

from the wood’s nature, a cold clarity,

from a person’s mind, a blank repose.

When mind’s gathered clear calm ch’i,

wood can make such sudden song of it,

and after lingering echoes die away,

song fading into depths of autumn night,

you suddenly hear the source of change,

all heaven and earth such depths of clarity.