1. Poems in the Mountains
Every person has a weakness;
mine is writing poems;
I've cut most ties with life,
but still I keep this habit.
Each time I glimpse a vista,
each time I meet a friend,
I start to fashion stanzas, chanting
as though I'd seen a god.
Since I was banished here
I've lived up in the hills.
When I have done a poem
I climb the road to East Rock.
I lean on huge white stones
I swing from cassia branches.
My crazy singing wakes the hills and valleys:
the birds and monkeys all come out to look.
People might laugh to see and hear me do this;
it's better that the place is so deserted!
I was airing some clothes in the courtyard
and found a pair of shoes from my hometown.
Somebody gave these to me. Who?
That lovely girl who was my neighbor—
and now her words come back to me:
“Take these, and they'll be a sign
that we will start and end together,
moving through life just like this pair of shoes
stepping together, resting together.”
Here I am now, in exile,
a thousand stormy miles and many years
away from her, that distant lover,
and all I have left is these shoes.
Nostalgia weighs me down all morning
as I stare at the shoes and fondle them.
I'm on my own. The shoes are still together.
But I will never pair with her again!
Well, I have got my share of tears and sorrow,
and this brocade's too delicate and fine
to stand the rain that murders every blossom:
the color's going to fade, and the silk flowers
are wilting even as I watch them.
3. The Cranes
The autumn wind has just begun to blow
and there goes the first leaf, falling.
The path is dry; I stroll it in my slippers,
wearing a padded coat against the cold.
The floods run off into the drainage ditches,
the light slants through the delicate bamboo.
Evening comes early; along a mossy path
the gardener's boy escorts a flock of cranes.
All night, in dream, I climbed a rugged mountain,
all on my own, with just my holly staff,
a thousand peaks, a hundred thousand valleys,
and in my dream I found my way to all
and all that time my feet were never sore—
I climbed with all the strength I had in youth.
When mind goes back in memory, does the body
also turn back into its younger self?
Or can it be, when body grows decrepit,
that soul can still be strong or even stronger?
Well, soul and body both are just illusions;
the same thing goes for dreaming and for waking.
By day my feet are tentative and feeble;
by night they take me springing through the mountains.
Since day and night take equal parts in life
maybe I'm gaining just as much as losing!
They've put my bed by an undecorated screen
and brought the stove in front of this blue curtain.
My grandkids read to me. I listen,
and watch the servant heating up my soup.
I sketch an answer to a poem from a friend,
and search my pockets, paying for my medicine.
When I have finished dealing with these trifles
I'll lie back on my pillow, face the south, and sleep.