cold ashes
fall from fingers
leftover life
blows away
Uncategorized
Spring Rain by Wang An-shih
Bitter mist hides spring colors. Grief-
drizzle sickens the splendor of things.
That dark isolate wonder impossible
now, I swill down a cup of dusk haze.
translated by David Hinton
Leaving the City by Wang An-shih
I’ve lived in the country long enough to know its wild joys:
it feels like I’m a child back home in my old village again.
Leaving the city today, I put all that gritty dust behind me,
and facing mountains and valleys, feel them enter my eyes.
translated by David Hinton
With my goosefoot staff by Wang An-shih
With my goosefoot staff, I wander the stream winding around
East Ridge. When interest fades, I go home to bed. But in dream,
emperors Yao and Chieh sometimes appear: one noble, one vile.
So my practice isn’t over. There are a few last things to forget.
translated by David Hinton
all the talking: for JEP
some time toward dawn
a shot of whiskey
burns its way
down my throat
in memory
of you
and all the talking
we had
and all the talking
we missed
Off-Hand Poem by Wang An-shih
It’s a blessing, the ten thousand things
spoken. Don’t forget even a single line,
for I’m sending in these words a place
far from this loud world of confusion.
translated by David Hinton
following a line from Wang An-shih: these distances
3am darkness
the street empty
no laughter passing by
this silence this night
weighs heavy
on my mind
and you old friend
thousands of miles
of years away
but not lost to me
knowing you still
in these distances
between us
feeling the warmth
your memory brings
“ Truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with. “
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
Truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with.
Richard Rorty, Philosopher
Chatting about the Past with the Elder (Ching-jen) by Hung Liang-chi
reblogged for Jimmy
All ambitions of youth yield place to calamities;
Parted as in a dream–reunited, we can’t trust our eyes.
Shall we match our strength in climbing one more mountain?
Winning fame in literature, there’s you alone.
In a sea of dust, we still can tarry for a little while;
Or sit in a granary of books, all day, without food.
This morning I took myself to Yen Pavilion for a look,
Trying to find the leanest horse to ride down the capital street.
translated by Irving Lo
“it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
Photo: Varun Gaba
