Cool breezes–I sleep by the open window
where the light of the setting moon shines in.
At midnight there are no voices,
but within my gauze curtains, a pair of smiles.
translated by Burton Watson
poetry
from Long Ago I Lived in the Country by Su Tung-p’o
But those days are gone—I see them only in a painting.
No one believes me when I say I regret
not staying a herdsman all my life.
translated by Burton Watson
because Paol Soren asked: Sorrow of Departure to the Tune “Cutting a Flowering Plum Branch” by Li Ch’ing-chao
Red lotus incense fades on
The jeweled curtain. Autumn
Comes again. Gently I open
My silk dress and float alone
On the orchid boat. Who can
Take a letter beyond the clouds?
Only the wild geese come back
And write their ideograms
On the sky under the full
Moon that floods the West Chamber.
Flowers, after their kind, flutter
And scatter. Water after
Its nature, when spilt, at last
Gathers again in one place.
Creatures of the same species
Long for each other. But we
Are far apart and I have
Grown learned in sorrow.
Nothing can make it dissolve
And go away. One moment
It is on my eyebrows.
The next, it weighs on my heart.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth & Ling Chung
from Autumn Thoughts by Han Yü
Leaves fall turning turning to the ground,
by the front eaves racing, following the wind;
morning voices seem to speak to me
as they whirl and toss in headlong flight.
An empty hall in the yellow dusk of evening:
I sit here silent, unspeaking.
The young boy comes in from outdoors,
trims the lamp, sets it before me,
asks me questions I do not answer,
brings me a supper I do not eat.
He goes and sits down by the west wall,
reading me poetry–three or four poems;
the poet is not a man of today–
already a thousand years divide us–
but something in his words strikes my heart,
fills it again with an acid grief.
I turn and call to the boy;
Put down the book and go to bed now–
a man has times when he must think,
and work to do that never ends.
translated by Burton Watson
At Parting by Ho Sun
The traveler’s heart has a hundred thoughts already,
his lonely journey piling mile on endless mile.
The river darkens, rain about to fall;
waves turn white as the wind comes up.
translated by Burton Watson
Wrecked Boat on the River Shore by Chiang Lu
So fine, the boards of magnolia;
splendid, the cinnamon woodwork!
You chased the waves, only to come to this;
rode the wind, yet brought on your own downfall.
Grasses are rank, your canopy was buried long ago;
the sands are monstrous, your hull would never budge.
How long it’s been since you sank in the dry land,
never again to ride the rippling sun.
translated by Burton Watson
Separation by Death by Ibn Hazm
She was pure and white, resembling the sun as it rises.
All other women were merely stars!
Love for her has made my heart fly off its permanent branch,
And after stopping a whie, it is still hovering in the air!
translated by A.R. Nykl
from Chasity by Ibn Faraj of Jaén
She was a field of fruit and flowers
offering one like me no other enjoyment
than sight and sound.
Know then that I am not
one of those beasts gone wild
who take gardens for pastures.
translated by Lysander Kemp
Arrival by William Carlos Williams
And yet one arrives somehow,
finds himself loosening the hooks of
her dress
in a strange bedroom–
feels the autumn
dropping its silk and linen leaves
about her ankles.
The tawdry veined body emerges
twisted upon itself
like a winter wind. . .!
from The Pitcher by Kabir
If you want the truth, I’ll tell you the truth:
Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you.
The one no one talks of speaks the secret sound to himself,
and he is the one who has made it all.
translated by Robert Bly
Leonard Durso 