Tired of my writing brush, I gazed out the window:
bamboo and pine were perfectly still.

At moonrise, a slight breeze came up,
like on those long-ago nights in the hills.

As though dreaming, I returned to the Hsien-yu Temple
near my home in the southern mountains.

When that palace water clock awakened me,
I thought it was the laughter of mountain streams.

translated by Sam Hamill

“One who speaks does not know; one who knows does not speak.”
Thus I have been instructed by the Old Master.

If you tell me the Old Master was one who knew, I ask,
Why did he write five thousand words to explain it.

translated by Sam Hamill

Downriver, someone plays
a bamboo flute at midnight.

Note by note, I’m transported
back into my youth at home.

Listening, I feel my thin hair
quickly turning white:

still growing old, still
sleepless, still alone.

translated by Sam Hamill

By candlelight, I read your poems.
It is almost dawn when I finish.

I rub my weary eyes
beside the guttering candle.

I sit motionless
in the predawn dark,

listening to the wind-driven waves
lapping at the bow.

translated by Sam Hamill

I pick up your scroll of poems, read in front of the lamp;
the poems are ended, the lamp gutters, the sky not yet light.
My eyes hurt, I put out the lamp, go on sitting in the dark;
a sound of waves blown up by head winds, sloshing against the boat.

translated by Burton Watson

So tender, so tender, the grasses on the plain,
in one year, to wither, then flourish.
Wildfire cannot burn them away.
Spring breezes’ breath, they spring again,
their distant fragrance on the ancient way,
their sunlit emerald greens the ruined walls.
Seeing you off again, dear friend,
sighing, sighing, full of parting’s pain.

translated by J.P. Seaton

In moonlight, I envied vistas of clarity,
and in pine sleep adorned green shadow.

I wrote grief-torn poems when young,
plumbed the depths of feeling when old.

Now I sit up all night practicing ch’an,
and autumn can still bring a sudden sigh,

but that’s it. Two last ties. Beyond them,
nothing anywhere holds this mind back.

translated by David Hinton