The Heavenly Emperor’s palace is deeply enclosed within nine gates;
The Great Shaman does not descend to inquire about your wrongs.
Since we parted at Huang-ling, spring waves have kept us apart;
Now a letter comes from the bank of the P’en as the autumn rain falls.
Only Au-jen could have written a fit funeral ovation;
Who says Sung Yü knew how to summon the soul?
A lifelong teacher and friend—this you were to me:
I dare not mourn you outside the door of the inner chamber.
translated by James J.Y. Liu
Month: March 2024
Lament for Registrar Liu Fen by Li Shang-yin
Living apart, we watched the stars and years change;
All hope gone, we are separated by life and death.
The cinnamon lees gather in the wine jar;
The old rue leaves lie cold on the book labels.
The river wind blows hard on the wild geese;
The mountain trees, sheltering cicadas, stand in the setting sun.
A single cry, a thousand times turning back the head—
But heaven is high and does not hear!
translated by James J.Y. Liu
those ancient poets
their sense of duty
often overshadowed
their need for security
they suffered the consequences
of exile often
sometimes banishment
to remote provinces
never again
to sit in the warmth
of family
of friends
to just be satisfied
with unfiltered wine
and parchment
on which to scribble
their words
their only lasting legacy
Prayer after Eating by Wendell Berry
I have taken in the light
that quickened eye and leaf.
May my brain be bright with praise
of what I eat, in the brief blaze
of motion and of thought.
May I be worthy of my meat.
from The Country of Marriage 4 by Wendell Berry
How many times have I come to you out of my head
with joy, if ever a man was,
for to approach you I have given up the light
and all directions. I come to you
lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
in you, when I arrive at last.
from The Country of Marriage 1 by Wendell Berry
I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.
Poem by Wendall Berry
Willing to die,
you give up
your will, keep still
until, moved
by what moves
all else, you move.
Living in Seclusion in Late Winter by Li Shang-yin
The day when feathered wings are damaged,
The time when the country garden is quiet—
The cock at dawn disturbs the snow on the tree;
The duck in the cold guards the icy pond.
Time passes quickly; the year is ending.
Worn with age, I am gradually declining.
Why has it never been my lot to fulfill
My lifelong wish to assist the State?
translated by James J. Y. Liu
Second Day of the Second Month by Li Shang-yin
On the second day of the Second Month I walk by the river;
The east wind in the warm sun wafts the sound of pipes.
The flowers’ whiskers and the willows’ eyes are listless in different ways;
The purple butterfly and the yellow bee both seem to have feelings.
My thoughts return to Yüan-liang’s well ten thousand miles away;
For three years I have been following General Ya-fu’s camp.
The new rapids do not understand the exile’s feelings,
But make a noise like wind and rain on the eaves at night.
translated by James J. Y. Liu
haiku by Shuoshi Mizuhara
My existence
facing chrysanthemums
becomes a silence.
translated by Edith Marcombe Shiffert & Yuki Sawa
Leonard Durso 