The most solid advice, though, for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

Every night I think of you until the water clock fades;
Sadly, under the bright moon, I lean against the balcony;
I think you too feel the cold in your lonely quilt.

A short foot away, the painted hall is as deep as the sea;
In remembrance I have only your old letters to read;
When can we be together, hand in hand, in Ch’ang-an?

translated by Lois M. Fusek

With the joy of that moment, my love
that moment when our fingers intertwine
and when our breathing blends
like steam quivering in the mouth of a volcano

With the joy of that moment, my love, that moment
when we close our eyes–to let the uproar
from a strained wire, from the depths of a precipice
collect in ourselves

With the joy of that moment, that moment
when blue stars explode behind your eyelids
when a river of fire flows down a slope
later to gush into the sky

With the joy of that moment, my love
with the joy of that wet and burning moment
when we look at one another as if for the first time
and call our names, we must embrace everything, everything

as the first heralds of a fire.

translated by Suat Karantay

water laps the rocks
the sun hangs high in the sky
tea cold in his glass
there is sadness in his heart
past and future beyond reach

My mind resembles cabin-lake water
Rippled by stray winds,
Shadowed by flowing clouds.

Someone is throwing stones;
Another is fishing;
Another is singing.

By this shore on a lonely night,
Stars quietly float on the water
And the woods quietly lull the waves.

But each night I cover the lake with my dreams
Lest this shore be untidy
The day the white swan returns.

unknown translator

awake and asleep
my mind goes back to a time
your face before me

bags packed and waiting
the car idling outside
no one left behind
a man in constant motion
running nowhere much too fast

On an ordinary autumn evening
Ordinary fruit is better.
Sometimes ordinary words
With no peculiar savor
Suit me better.
Hearing in memory
The last car depart,
I step over
The membrane of sleep,
And a fruit falls in my dream.
I will ask the wind
That departs in the morning
To what depths the fruit has fallen.

unknown translator