Green grass is spreading like fine silk thread
even ordinary trees are decked out in pink
it doesn’t matter you haven’t returned
by the time you do spring will be gone
translated by Red Pine
Month: March 2016
On a Moonlit Night Meeting at Hsu Eleven’s Thatched Hut by Wei Ying-wu
In an empty study with nothing to do
you loosened your hair strings and waited for a friend
it wasn’t a night for reading
but for writing poems about the moon
after listening to the bell and sleeping in comfort
we rolled up dew-covered blinds
and sensed another fall was near
while the fading river tried to hold off dawn
translated by Red Pine
Moonlit Night by Wei Ying-wu
A brilliant moon wanders the spring city,
thick dew luminous among fragrant grasses.
I sit, longing. Empty, this window of gauze
torn and fluttering in crystalline radiance,
crystalline radiance where it ends like this:
torn more and more, a person growing old.
translated by David Hinton
Parting from My Yin Daughter by Wang An-shih
I’ve only lived thirty years and already I feel old
wherever I look I’m beset by sorrow
I’ve come in this little boat to say goodbye tonight
here where the shores of life and death divide us
translated by Red Pine
note: written to his daughter who was buried on a small hill beyond a moat just before he had to leave the district for his next government posting
New Year’s Eve by Hsin Ch’i-chi
In the east wind last night a thousand trees burst forth
showered down
a rain of stars
jeweled horses and carriages and incense filled the road
the tremulous sound of a phoenix flute
the transforming glow of a jade vase
all night lanterns swayed
and she of the moth eyebrows and flower-decked hair
of laughter that beguiles and the subtlest of perfumes
whom I have searched for in crowds a hundred times
as I turned my head
she was there
where the lantern light was faint
translated by Red Pine
On Yellow Crane Tower Hearing a Flute by Li Pai
Suddenly an exile on the way to Changsha
looking back toward Ch’ang-an I don’t see a soul
from Yellow Crane Tower I hear a jade flute
plum blossoms fall in this city in June
translated by Red Pine
Leaving Fenning at Night, for Tu Chien-sou by Huang T’ing-chien
The song of “Yang Pass” and the river flowing east
lanterns on Chingyang Mountain and this little boat
and me I’m as drunk as I have ever been
the moon on the rippling river sighs on my behalf
translated by Red Pine
a Chinese proverb
from the Analects of Confucius 1
Why should a man of no moral worth
clutter the earth?
translated by Ezra Pound
on the balcony waiting for morning:Maltepe, March 23
insulated
in sweats
against cool air
watching distant lights
on Princes’ Islands
thoughts drift north
a thousand miles
only to settle
here
in this ancient city
as the morning prayer
fails to calm
this mind
trying to cope
with this broken world
Leonard Durso 