LISTENING TO A MONK’S CH’IN DEPTHS

Carrying a ch’in cased in green silk, a monk

descended from Eyebrow Mountain in the west.

When he plays, even in a few first notes,

I hear the pines of ten thousand valleys,

and streams rinse my wanderer’s heart clean.

Echoes linger among temple frost-fall bells,

night coming unnoticed in emerald mountains,

autumn clouds banked up, gone dark and deep.