By the old gate, among yellow grasses;
Still we linger, sick at heart.
The way you must follow through cold clouds
Will lead you this evening into snow.
Your father died; you left home young;
Nobody knew of your misfortunes.
We cry, we say nothing. What can I wish you
In this blowing wintry world?
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
While the year sinks westward, I hear a cicada
Bid me to be resolute here in my cell,
Yet it needed the song of those black wings
To break a white-haired prisoner’s heart . . .
His flight is heavy through the fog,
His voice drowns in the windy world.
Who knows if he is singing still?—
Who listens any more to me?
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
Covet not a gold-threaded robe,
Cherish only your young days!
If a bud open, gather it—
Lest you but wait for an empty bough.
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
Morning fire, sunlit window, a bowl of rice gruel: mirror
quiet of a pond no fish troubles, we face each other, then
leave sage temples and mountain forests far behind, our
farewell a ch’an sky, its clarity a place we dwell together.
translated by David Hinton
My lame donkey hates the stony road
up there, and I’m done with big climbs.
It seems forever since I saw you, my old
monk friend. Our youth suddenly gone,
I keep following morning clouds away,
then race evening birds back into this
valley of pines all shadowed dark. Here,
I know you in the distances between us.
translated by David Hinton
I close my gate, wanting to end grief,
but grief won’t go away. Then spring
wind comes, and I want to keep grief
close, but somehow grief won’t stay.
translated by David Hinton
Where is the first sign of spring?
Spring comes earliest to a small pavilion:
Upon the shadow of a bamboo blind in the moonlight,
In the tender notes from a flute in the breeze,
In the greening of a branch breaking out at the tip,
In the drippings of a candle of red passion.
In the whispered words overheard past midnight,
In the scented breath wafted beyond the wall.
translated by Irving Lo
To learn to be without desire, you must desire that;
Better to do as you please: sing idleness:
Floating clouds and water running—where’s their source?
In all the vastness of the sea and sky, you’ll never find it.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Willow flowers, snowflakes
The same; they’re feckless—
No matter whose garden they fall in,
They always follow the wind away.
translated by J.P. Seaton
There’s something to love in each thing in the world
Except money: that most insipid of all things:
In life, you can’t get it;
In death, you can’t take it.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Being Present for the Moment
Website storys
Illustration, Concept Art & Comics/Manga
Singer, Songwriter and Author from Kyoto, Japan.
Singer, Songwriter and Author from Kyoto, Japan.
An online activist from Bosnia and Herzegovina, based in Sarajevo, standing on the right side of the history - for free Palestine.
A place where I post unscripted, unedited, soulless rants of a insomniac madman
Dennis Mantin is a Toronto-based writer, artist, and filmmaker.
Finding Inspiration
Off the wall, under the freeway, over the rainbow, nothin' but net.
A virtual speakeasy of songs, stories and questionable life choices.
Artist by choice, photographer by default, poet and author by accident.
At Least Trying Too
A Journey of Spiritual Significance
Life in islamic point of view
Through the view point of camera...
L'essenziale è invisibile e agli occhi e al cuore. Beccarlo è pura questione di culo
In Kate's World
Leonard Durso 