Thinking of you, in autumn night,
Strolling, chanting the cool air.
Empty mountain: pine cones fall.
Secluded man: staying up, still?
translated by Wai-lim Yip
on reading Su Tung-p’o: my remaining years
on land on sea
wherever I wander
these ghosts
who accompany me
smile benignly
at these
my remaining years
what joy
oh what joy
an extra piece
of chocolate cake
a child’s smile
laughter
in the morning
Hearing the Flute in the City of Loyang in a Spring Night by Li Po
Whose jade-flute is this, notes flying invisibly
Scatter into spring winds, filling City of Loyang?
Hearing the “Break-a-Willow-Twig” tonight,
Who can withhold the surge of thoughts of home?
ytranslated by Wai-lim Yip
in Moda: November 16, 2019
the smell of roasting chestnuts
light fading into dusk
a dog barks
a cat lies serenely
on top of a car
and these old legs
climb the hill
toward home
“Sometimes you have to look hard at a person and remember he’s doing the best he can. He’s just trying to find his way, just like you.”
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“Sometimes you have to look hard at a person and remember he’s doing the best he can. He’s just trying to find his way, just like you.”
Katherine Hepburn (as Ethel Thayer) to Jane Fonda (as Chelsea Thayer Wayne), On Golden Pond, 1981
I Only Hear a Bell Beyond the Mist by Su Tung-p’o
I only hear a bell beyond the mist,
can’t see the mist-wrapped temple.
The man secluded there never stops walking–
dew from the grass soaks his straw sandals–
nothing but the mountaintop moon
each night to light his comings and goings.
translated by Burton Watson
from A Report in Spring by E. B. White
One never knows what images one is going to hold in memory, returning to the city after a brief orgy in the country. I find this morning that what I most vividly and longingly recall is the sight of my grandson and his little sunburnt sister returning to their kitchen door from an excursion, with trophies of the meadow clutched in their tiny hands–she with a couple of violets, and smiling, he serious and holding dandelions, strangling them in a responsible grip. Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists–just as grownups, who are less sure of it, hold it in their hearts.
from a line by Wang Wan: the year ages
time moves on
one can’t resist it
muscles no longer as strong
as in my youth
the joints creak
less hair to blow
in that restless wind
the year ages
as do I
thankful still
for another day
a month a year
the gift of living
so grateful to accept
this day
again
To See A Friend Off by Wang Wei
Dismount and drink this wine.
Where to? I ask.
At odds with the world:
Return to rest by the South Hill.
Go. Go. Do not ask again.
Endless, the white clouds.
translated by Wai-lim Yip
Leonard Durso 