Blue water
burning moon
on South Lake
he gathers lilies
the lotus flowers
whisper
the lone boatman
sighs
translated by David Young
poetry
Autumn Lines by Li Po (Li Bai)
Clean fall wind
clear fall moon
leaves heaped by the wind
leaves scattered
a cold raven
flaps slowly
from his roost
thoughts of you
fill my head
will I ever
see you again?
the ache
around my heart
gets bigger
translated by David Young
from The Boat by Kabir
How lucky Kabir is, that surrounded by all this joy
he sings inside his own little boat.
His poems amount to one soul meeting another.
These songs are about forgetting dying and loss.
They rise above both coming in and going out.
translated by Robert Bly
Is my soul asleep? by Antonio Machado
Is my soul asleep?
Have those beehives that work
in the night stopped? And the water-
wheel of thought, is it
going around now, cups
empty, carrying only shadows?
No, my soul is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches,
its eyes wide open
far-off things, and listens
at the shores of the great silence.
translated by Robert Bly
tanka 2 by Ariwara No Narihira
Neither waking or sleeping,
I saw the night out,
and now spend
all day in thought,
staring at these long spring rains.
translated by Hiroaki Sato & Burton Watson
tanka 2 by Yosano Akiko
Spring is short:
Why ever should it
Be thought immortal?
I grope for
My full breasts with my hands.
translated by Geoffrey Bownas & Anthony Thwaite
Who makes these changes? by Rumi
Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
and end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others
and fall in.
I should be suspicious
of what I want.
translated by Coleman Barks
from What I said to the wanting-creature by Kabir
Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are.
Cricket by No Ch’on-myong
Because my shelter must not be known,
because my poorness must not show,
in hiding through the night I cry.
For somewhere someone weeps like me
I must soak more in the moonlight,
retain the sorrow of my night again
there behind the stone steps.
translated by Ko Won
tanka 1 by Yosano Akiko
No camellia
Not plum for me,
No flower that is white.
Peach blossom has a color
That does not ask my sins.
translated by Geoffrey Bownas & Anthony Thwaite
Leonard Durso 