life is
two thirds heartache
one third happiness
not bad odds
considering
other interpretations
just have to sort out
the numbers
to see where one stands

Simple things
one wants to say
like, what’s the day
like, out there–
who am I
and where.

Nightfall. Clouds scatter and vanish.
The sky is pure and cold.
Silently the River of Heaven turns in the Jade Vault.
If tonight I do not enjoy life to the full,
Next month, next year, who knows where I will be?

translated by Kenneth Rexroth

On the pondside ankle-deep in the fallen leaves
trees cast their jagged shadows
while waters awaken a pale sheen.
I stand alone waiting
for the day to dawn.
Are there tender tears heavenly people shed,
like a rain-cloud, on their lonely dream pillows?
My sweet, why don’t you come, shy and soft,
over to me across the waters?
A cloud braces against the evening skies.
A half moon holds a wake in mid-heaven.

translated by Jaihiun Kim & Ronald B. Hatch

What bliss it is to be blind to life’s futility.
Today as usual from the far-off village
a fishing boat has set out to sea, I hear–
how fearful were the waves billowing last year!

transalated by Jaihiun Kim & Ronald B. Hatch

If I could make a stallion
of the crimson cloud that sails
darkened in the night,
I would fly nine thousand leagues
to be held in your arms
while you lie asleep.
But this I cannot do.
When you hear the rain fall,
take it for my tears
that I shed every night.

translated by Jaihiun Kim & Ronald B. Hatch

I must take comfort,
take life as it comes
the way the wind whines in the trees
stripped of flowers and foliage.

translated by Jaihiun Kim & Ronald B. Hatch

“I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone’s heart beating. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.”

“That’s all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.”

“The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one’s love upon other human individual’s.”