“When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little east of Kansas. I think of books on library shelves, without their jackets, years old, and a countryish teen-aged boy finding them, and having them speak to him. The reviews, the stacks in Brentano’s, are just hurdles to get over, to place the books on that shelf.”

The shadows of the t’ung tree, glistening and clear,
having just passed,
Bells under the eaves tinkle in the wind,
breaking off my daytime sleep.
In a dream I found myself in a painted hall with no one around,
And only a pair of swallows softly threading zither strings.

translated by Irving Y. Lo

there’s nothing to prove
to anyone
except oneself
there’s that code
of ethics
you follow
at all costs
and if the world
doesn’t understand you
it also
doesn’t change you
and the woman
who will love you
will love you
because you are
who you are
comfortable
in your own skin

The cold river spreads boundless away.
Autumn rains darken azure-deep skies.

You ask about Whole-South Mountain:
the mind knows beyond white clouds.

translated by David Hinton

How few of us are left, how few!
Why do we not go back?
Were it not for our prince and his concerns,
What should we be doing here in the dew?

How few of us are left, how few!
Why do we not go back?
Were it not for our prince’s own concerns,
What should we be doing here in the mud?

translated by Arthur Waley

They did not know even the simple things: a sense of victory, or satisfaction, or neccesary sacrifice. They did not know the feeling of taking a place and keeping it, securing a village and then raising the flag and calling it a victory. No sense of order or momentum. No front, no rear, no trenches laid out in neat parallels. No Patton rushing for the Rhine, no beachheads to storm and win and hold for the duration. They did not have targets. They did not have a cause. They did not know if it was a war of ideology or economics or hegemony or spite. On a given day, they did not know where they were in Quang Ngai, or how being there might influence larger outcomes. They did not know the names of most villages. They did not know which villages were crucial. They did not know strategies. They…

Keep away from sharp swords,
Don’t go near lovely woman.
A sharp sword too close will wound your hand,
Woman’s beauty too close will wound your life.
The danger of the road is not in the distance,
Ten yards is far enough to break a wheel.
The peril of love is not in loving too often,
A single evening can leave its wound in the soul.

translated by A.C. Graham