White hair! Three thousand yards of it.
And a sadness, a sorrow, as long.
I don’t understand. Where did my bright mirror
find all this autumn frost?
translated by J.P. Seaton
aging
on calendars & time
the cleaning people
keep changing
the date
on my wall
calendar
before
I can do it
myself
not a race
or a reminder
just courtesy
and I
too grateful
for their
always cheerful
service
cannot say
don’t rush
the passage
of time
for I
am not
anxious
to see it
slip away
quite so quickly
one day
at a time
Middle Years by Wang An-shih
Middle years devoted to the nation, I lived a fleeting dream,
and home again in old age, I wander borderland wilderness.
Looking south to green mountains, it’s clear I’m not so alone
here; on spring lakes, they crowd my little-boat life all adrift.
translated by David Hinton
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 Sailing At Night: A Song Sequence: I by Ma Chih-yüan
A hundred years are but a butterfly’s dream.
Looking back, I sigh for things past.
Spring comes today;
Tomorrow flowers will fade.
So make haste with the penal cup–
The night is dying, the lamp burning out.
translated by Sherwin S. S. Fu
9/9, On Tzu-chou City Wall by Tu Fu
This night of yellow-blossom wine
Finds me old, my hair white. Joys
I ponder lost to youth, I look out
Across distances. Seasons run together.
Brothers and sisters inhabit desolate
Songs. Heaven and Earth fill drunken eyes.
Warriors and spears, frontier passes. . . .
All day, thoughts have gone on and on.
translated by David Hinton
At Cloud-Gate Monastery, Sitting Alone by Lu Yu
Northern mountains, and southern, too–I’ve wandered them all,
and if I look back, I see sixty-seven years of springtime festivals.
Today, given this far away into old age, all battered and broken,
I sit alone, lit incense fragrant, and listen to the sound of water.
translated by David Hinton
Cold Food Day: To My Cousins by Wei Ying-wu
The fire ban darkens an auspicious day
I still feel the pain of our parting
seeing these flower-covered fields
reminds me of the trails of Tuling
when will we ride together again
I’m feeling much older today
translated by Red Pine
NOTE: Cold Food Day occurred 150 days after Winter Solstice (late spring). This is in the commentary by Red Pine.
Moonlit Night by Wei Ying-wu
A brilliant moon wanders the spring city,
thick dew luminous among fragrant grasses.
I sit, longing. Empty, this window of gauze
torn and fluttering in crystalline radiance,
crystalline radiance where it ends like this:
torn more and more, a person growing old.
translated by David Hinton
Looking in the Mirror the Day Before the Advent of Autumn by Li Yi
Everything fades away beyond oneself.
Life is all here in the mirror:
Just that my temples are covered with snow,
With which to front the autumn winds tomorrow.
translated by William H. Nienhauser
Leonard Durso 