Whose jade flute secretly soars in the night?
Spring wind scatters sound all over Luoyang.
The midnight flute keens a farewell song, “Snap the Willow Branch.”
Thinking of my old home and garden, I break.
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
8th Century Chinese poetry
Hearing Cicadas by Xue Tao
Washed clean by dew, cicada songs go far
and like windblown leaves piling up
each cicada’s cry blends into the next.
Yet each lives on its own branch.
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
Seeing a Friend Off by Xue Tao
In water lands, night frost on reeds,
a cold moon the color of the mountains.
Who says our thousand-mile separation starts tonight?
My dream can travel to the farthest border pass.
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
Ballad of a Voyager by Li Po (Li Bai)
Ocean voyager, on heaven’s winds,
in his ship, far wandering. . .
Like a bird, among the clouds,
gone, he will leave no trace.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Thoughts of a Quiet Night by Li Po (Li Bai)
Before the bed, bright moonlight.
I took it for frost on the ground.
I raised my head to dream upon that moon,
then bowed my head, lost, in thoughts of home.
translated by J.P. Seaton
For Someone Far Away by Wang Wei
All year I stay alone in my bedroom
dreaming of Mountain Pass, remembering our separation.
No swallow comes with letters in its claws.
I see only the new moon like the eyebrow of a moth.
translated by Tony Barnstone, Willis Barnstone, & Xu Haixin
A Poem to a Taoist Hermit on Ch’uan-chiao Mountain by Wei Ying-wu
My office has grown cold today;
And I suddenly think of my mountain friend
Gathering firewood down in the valley
Or boiling white stones for potatoes in his hut. . .
I wish I might take him a cup of wine
To cheer him through the evening storm;
But in fallen leaves that have heaped the bare slope,
How should I ever find his footprints?
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
On Meeting My Friend Feng Chu in the Capital by Wei Ying-wu
Out of the east you visit me,
With the rain of Pa-ling still on your clothes,
I ask what you have come here for;
You say: “To buy an axe for cutting wood in the mountains.”
. . .Hidden deep in a haze of blossom,
Swallow fledglings chirp at ease
As they did when we parted, a year ago. . . .
How grey our temples have grown since then!
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
from Laments of the Gorges by Meng Chiao
what of that thirst for wisdom when you’re
suddenly here, dead center in these waters?
translated by David Hinton
Grieving on the Way to Fuping by Wei Ying-wu
A bitter frost fell this morning
before the white shroud I cried
ordered on a hundred-li journey
what good would sorrow do
earlier in the prefecture office
I ran errands to towns in the district
leaving home without any worries
always coming back happy
now when I close my rickety gate
I hear our children crying
but a father has to go forth
even when there’s no mother at home
swallowing remorse hurts me inside
all the more in this bitter cold
in a one-person cart on a road so bleak
I look back and keep slowing down
a rising wind lashes the plain
geese cry out and fly off
in the past we traveled this road together
I never thought I’d be on it alone
translated by Red Pine
Leonard Durso 