I tell you, don’t adore your coat of gold brocade.
I tell you, adore the short spell of youth.
When the bloom is ready it must be plucked.
Don’t wait till flowers drop and break the empty twig.
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
T’ang Dynasty
Lament for Peony Flowers by Bai Juyi
I grieve for the red peony flower by the steps.
By this evening two branches have withered.
Tomorrow morning wind will blow away the rest.
At night I keep sad watch, hold flame over the dying red.
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
Black-Uniform Lane by Liu Yuxi: THERE IS A MISTAKE IN THE TITLE OF THIS POEM. IT SHOULD BE Bamboo Branch Song. Same poet, though. And I swear I wasn’t drinking..
Willows are green, green and the river water flat.
I hear a man on the river singing me songs
and see sun on my east, rain on my west.
The sun is shying off, but I feel his shine.
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
On Laozi by Bai Juyi
“The ignorant speak, but the sage stay silent.”
I heard this saying from Laozi.
But if Laozi knew the Way,
why did he write a book of five thousand characters?
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
Moon by Xue Tao
Its spirit leans like a thin hook
or opens round like a Han-loom fan,
slender shadow whose nature is to be full,
seen everywhere in the human world.
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
After Finishing a Poem by Chia Tao
Those two lines cost me three years:
I chant them once and get two more, of tears.
Friend, if you don’t like them. . .
I’ll go home, and lie down,
in the ancient mountain autumn.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Sick Cicada by Chia Tao
A sick cicada, unable now to fly,
Walks over onto my palm.
Its broken wing can still grow thinner.
And its bitter songs are clear as ever.
Dewdrops stick on its belly,
Dust specks fallen by mischance in its eyes.
The oriole and the kite as well
Both harbor the thought of your ruin.
translated by Stephen Owen
Evening View as the Snow Clears by Chia Tao
I lean on my staff, gaze at the sunlit snow,
Clouds and gullies in countless layers.
The woodcutter returns to his plain hut,
As the winter sun falls behind sheer peaks.
A wildfire burns over the grass of the hills;
Broken patches of mist rise from among the rocks and pines.
Then, turning back on the mountain temple road,
I hear the bells ring in the evening sky.
translated by Stephen Owen
To the Waters of the Chia-ling, Two poems by Yuan Zhen
1
Long ago you were perhaps
a river flowing down a mountain!
Since then you’ve been flowing,
deepening your bed;
If I could make a river current
understand human feeling,
Then you might know my mind
on coming from so far.
2
You, water with no feeling,
Have you regrets as you flow east?
In my heart are things I cannot express,
Does that make me different from you?
translated by William H. Nienhauser
from Missing Her After Separation by Yuan Zhen
A mountain spring randomly flows over the steps:
a small house among thousands of peach flowers.
Before getting up, I leaf through a Daoist book
and watch her combing her hair under the crystal curtain.
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
Leonard Durso 