Having power need not warp your heart and mind,
but if you cheat folks, you put yourself in danger.
Just look at the fire on the wood:
once it’s burned up the fuel, the fire’s gone, too.
translated by J.P. Seaton
T’ang Dynasty
poem 1 by Wang Fan-chih
Nobody lives to be a hundred.
But they try to write rhymes that’ll last a thousand.
Forge an iron gate to fence out the demons:
demons watch, clapping, and laughing.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Off for the rest of the week to Istanbul and traveling without a computer, just my phone, which I refuse to use for anythng other than phonecalls & some text messaging. So I will not be back until next week. Thus, I leave this poem as my last post until then. Enjoy your days if the weather wherever you are is as lovely as here, and if not, hope you make the best of it. The poem: Gazing at the Moon from South Tower by Chiao Jan
Moon tonight, and everyone’s moon-gazing,
but I’m alone, and in love with this tower.
Threads of cloud are shattered in the stream:
trailing willow is the picture of late fall.
As it brightens, you can see a thousand peaks.
Far off, the veins of ridges flow.
Mountain passes. . .
will I ever climb again?
I stand alone,
and let the border sadness rise.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Written in the Mountains by Kuan Hsiu
A mountain’s palace
for all things crystalline and pure;
there’s not a speck of dust
on a single one of these flowers.
When we start chanting like madmen
it sets all the peaks to dancing.
And once we’ve put the brush to work
even the sky becomes mere ornament.
For you and me the joy’s in the doing
and I’m damned if I care about “talent.”
But if, my friend, from time to time
you hear sounds like ghostly laughter. . .
It’s all the great mad poets, dead,
and just dropping in for a listen.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Sending Off a Friend amid the Cries of Gibbons by Chiao Jan
You’ll go ten thousand miles
beyond those ancient mountains. . .
Three gibbons’ cries,
a chasm full of moonlight. . .
How long’s this road been here?
How many travelers
have wet their sleeves beside it?
A broken wall divides the drooping shadows.
Rushing rapids sing a bitter song.
In the cold, when we have finally parted,
it will be all the more wounding to hear.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Goodbyes by Chiao Jan
I’ve heard that even “men of feeling”
don’t treasure the feeling of parting.
Frosty sky drips a chill
on the cold city wall.
The long night spreads
like water overflowing.
There’s the sound of the watch-horn, too.
The zen man’s heart is empty, yes,
of all but these.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Saying Goodby to the Monk Ling-ch’e by Liu Ch’ang-ch’ing
Dark and dim, the Bamboo Grove Monastery,
Faint and faraway, the sound of bells at dusk.
Your bamboo hat carrying home the evening sun,
Alone you return to the distant green hills.
translated by Dell R. Hales
from an untitled poem by Han Shan
Time is like a flowing river—
One day, we wake up old men.
translated bvy Eugene Eoyang
from On the Border: poem 3 by Kuan Hsiu
In Green Mound Cave, they say
a white wolf dwells.
Once in a while it comes out
looks east, and howls
and howls
and howls.
Paint that for me, if you can,
my painter friend.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Grass on the Ancient Plain by Po Chu-i
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
Leonard Durso 