No camellia
Not plum for me,
No flower that is white.
Peach blossom has a color
That does not ask my sins.

translated by Geoffrey Bownas & Anthony Thwaite

The months and years compel our lives
here the mist and clouds abound
how many times will I again know
the welcome of Chulin Temple

translated by Red Pine

Ten thousand things are heard when born,
But the highest heaven’s always still.
Yet everything must begin in silence,
And into silence it vanishes.

translated by Irving Y. Lo

to live in silence
here awake and yet asleep
on the borderline
tween living and spirit world
it is a tightrope we walk

Shall I ask the willow trees on the dike
For whom do they wear their green spring dress?
In vain I saunter to the places of yesterday,
And I do not see yesterday’s people.
Weaving through myriad courtyards and village squares,
Coming and going, the dust of carriages and horses–
Do not say I have met with no acquaintance:
Only they are not those close to my heart.

translated by Irving Y. Lo

Still smoking I went outside. Cra, cra, cra, shouted the ravens flying through the ashen sky. I went down into the street, went along the street of that Sicily which was no longer a journey, but motionless, and I smoked and cried.

“Ah! Ah! He’s crying! Why is he crying?” shouted the crows among themselves, following behind me.

I continued my walk without answering, and an old black woman followed behind me too. “Why are you crying?” she asked.

I didn’t respond, and I went on, smoking, crying; and a tough guy who was waiting on the piazza with his hands in his pockets asked me too: “Why are you crying?”

He too followed behind me, and still crying, I passed in front of a church. The priest saw us, me and those following me, and asked the old woman, the tough guy, the crows: “Why is this man crying?”

The most solid advice, though, for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

Every night I think of you until the water clock fades;
Sadly, under the bright moon, I lean against the balcony;
I think you too feel the cold in your lonely quilt.

A short foot away, the painted hall is as deep as the sea;
In remembrance I have only your old letters to read;
When can we be together, hand in hand, in Ch’ang-an?

translated by Lois M. Fusek

With the joy of that moment, my love
that moment when our fingers intertwine
and when our breathing blends
like steam quivering in the mouth of a volcano

With the joy of that moment, my love, that moment
when we close our eyes–to let the uproar
from a strained wire, from the depths of a precipice
collect in ourselves

With the joy of that moment, that moment
when blue stars explode behind your eyelids
when a river of fire flows down a slope
later to gush into the sky

With the joy of that moment, my love
with the joy of that wet and burning moment
when we look at one another as if for the first time
and call our names, we must embrace everything, everything

as the first heralds of a fire.

translated by Suat Karantay