OVERNIGHT AT EAST ISLAND

2

To see them, look at mountains revealed and unrevealed.

If you don’t, even looking at mountains is pure delusion.

Ten thousand peaks of blue keep me enthralled all day,

and at dusk, I linger out twilight’s last few purple spires,

but how many people venture forth on these riverboats

to gaze at mountains, and who can see them absolutely?

Let those boatmen keep their reckless talk to themselves:

if you scare the children, they’ll refuse to go anywhere.

3

Always wanting to fill a poet’s eyes to the brim, old heaven

worries that autumn mountains are too washed-out and dead,

so it measures out Shu brocade, unfurls flushed clouds of Wu,

and rubs them lush and low across these autumn mountains.

Before long, red brocade thins into kingfisher-green gauze

as heaven’s loom weaves out evening crows returning home,

then evening crows and kingfisher-green gauze are gone:

nothing in sight but a clear river pure as sun-bleached silk.