face to face is problematic
from the side the view is clearer
otherwise neither would know
the length of the other’s nostrils
translated by Red Pine
poetry
The Star by Wendell Berry
Flying at night, above the clouds, all earthmarks spurned,
lost in Heaven, where peaceful entry must be earned,
I have no pleasure here, nothing to desire.
And then I see one light below there like a star.
The Plan by Wendell Berry
My old friend, the owner
of a new boat, stops by
to ask me to fish with him,
and I say I will–both of us
knowing that we may never
get around to it, it may be
years before we’re both
idle again on the same day.
But we make a plan, anyhow,
in honor of friendship
and the fine spring weather
and the new boat
and our sudden thought
of the water shining
under the morning fog.
A Meeting by Wendell Berry
In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same
for the dead are changeless.
They grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: “How you been?”
He grins and looks at me.
“I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees.”
Breaking by Wendell Berry
Did I believe I had a clear mind?
It was like the water of a river
flowing shallow over the ice. And now
that the rising water has broken
the ice, I see that what I thought
was the light is part of the dark.
from Seven Sorrows by Wang Ts’an
I can’t sleep at night alone
but get up, put on a robe, and play the lute;
strings and paulownia wood know how I feel;
for me they make a sorrowful sound.
On a journey that has no end
dark thoughts are powerful and hard to bear!
translated by Burton Watson
from the Book of Songs (Odes): 91
Blue blue your collar,
sad sad my heart:
though I do not go to you,
why don’t you send word?
Blue blue your belt-stone,
sad sad my thoughts:
though I do not go to you,
why don’t you come?
Restless, heedless,
I walk the gate tower.
One day not seeing you
is three months long.
translated by Burton Watson
from Jahan Malek Khatun: 3
Last night, my love, my life, you lay with me,
I grasped your pretty chin, I fondled it,
And then I bit, and bit, your sweet lips till
I woke. . .It was my fingertips I bit.
translated by Dick Davis
from Jahan Malek Khatun: 2
I told my heart, “I can’t endure this tyranny!
He’s nothing, no one! What’s this bully’s love to me?”
My little heart, you’re like a boundless sea, it seems;
And common sense? A splinter somewhere on that sea.
translated by Dick Davis
from Jahan Malek Khatun: 1
The roses have all gone; “Goodbye,” we say; we must;
And I shall leave the busy world one day; I must;
My little room, my books, my love, my sips of wine–
All these are dear to me; they’ll pass away; they must.
translated by Dick Davis
Leonard Durso 