Ninth century
Fields, a house, many mulberry trees, fine gardens!
Oxen and calves fill his stables and his well-trodden roads.
He knows for sure from all this that all effects have causes,
and that only fools buy early and sell late.
So his eyes can see too how it could all get gone,
ground down, melted, all away . . .
These things can knock on the heads of everyone living,
like the Abbot’s knock on the noggin of the errant novice.
You can end up in paper pants, or worse, with
a broken tile, pierced and hung on a thong
flip-flapping over your private parts . . .
and sure as sure, you’ll end up dead,
maybe starved or frozen, but certainly dead.
Translated from the Chinese by J. P. Seaton.