Birds have vanished into deep skies.
A last cloud drifts away, all idleness.
Inexhaustible, this mountain and I
gaze at each other, it alone remaining.
translated by David Hinton
Month: November 2014
the surprise conversation: for Kristi
my thoughts
finished
before I think
them
our words
tumble over
each other
in the rush
of familiarity
to say
I know you
an understatement
to say
I’ve found you
a blessing
here
alas adrift
a life jacket
in the immense
sea
from the Analects by Confucius
The Master said, Yu, shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to recognize that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to recognize that you do not know it. That is knowledge.
translated by Arthur Waley
from Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien
Oscar Johnson refused to back off from a claim that he was born and raised in center-city Detroit, where, he said, he first learned the principles of human diplomacy. He listed them in precise order–compromise, give-‘n’-take, courtesy, magnanimity. “An’ if you still don’ get what you want,” Oscar said, “then crack the sons of bitches with a sledgehammer.” Diplomacy, he was fond of saying, is the art of persuasion; and war–never citing his sources–is simply diplomacy continued through other means. . .
At West Creek in Ch’u-chou by Wei Ying-wu
Alone, I savor wildflowers tucked in along the creek,
and there’s a yellow oriole singing in treetop depths.
Spring floods come rain-swollen and wild at twilight.
No one here at the ferry, a boat drifts across of itself.
translated by David Hinton
from Lady Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons: Autumn 6
You left in early spring, and I long
to have you back by autumn’s end.
How I hate this river flowing east:
all year, never a care for the west.
translated by David Hinton
An Early Walk on Shang Mountain by Wen T’ing-yün
Departing at dawn, carriage bells ajingle–
The traveler grieves for his ancestral home.
A cock’s crow, a thatched teahouse in the moonlight,
Human footprints on the frosted bridge planking,
Betel leaves fallen by the mountain road,
Orange blossoms bright on the station wall–
And so I dream a dream of Ch’ang-an,
Where ducks and geese settle, crowding the pond.
translated by William R. Schultz
Leonard Durso 