Things aren’t other than they are.
I am today whoever I was long ago,
and if I can be described, it’s as this
perfect likeness of all these things.
translated by David Hinton
Wang An-shih
Thoughts as I Lie Alone by Wang An-shih
Alone, a noon dove calling in spring
shade, I lie in a valley of forest quiet.
Scraps of cloud pass, scattering rain,
and I listen, late in life, to its clatter.
Eyes full of red and green confusion,
our sad times unraveling my legacy,
there’s no word near these thoughts
still as Bell Mountain in its slumber.
translated by David Hinton
Spring Rain by Wang An-shih
Bitter mist hides spring colors. Grief-
drizzle sickens the splendor of things.
That dark isolate wonder impossible
now, I swill down a cup of dusk haze.
translated by David Hinton
Leaving the City by Wang An-shih
I’ve lived in the country long enough to know its wild joys:
it feels like I’m a child back home in my old village again.
Leaving the city today, I put all that gritty dust behind me,
and facing mountains and valleys, feel them enter my eyes.
translated by David Hinton
With my goosefoot staff by Wang An-shih
With my goosefoot staff, I wander the stream winding around
East Ridge. When interest fades, I go home to bed. But in dream,
emperors Yao and Chieh sometimes appear: one noble, one vile.
So my practice isn’t over. There are a few last things to forget.
translated by David Hinton
Off-Hand Poem by Wang An-shih
It’s a blessing, the ten thousand things
spoken. Don’t forget even a single line,
for I’m sending in these words a place
far from this loud world of confusion.
translated by David Hinton
Spring Evening on Pan Mountain by Wang An-shih
Spring breezes erase the flowers,
leaving me in a state of yin.
This quiet downhill road leads by
a half-hidden bower where I’ll make my bed.
Straw sandals, a walking stick–
I wander the world alone,
only a few northern birds pass by
like the memory of a beautiful song.
translated by Sam Hamill
Gazing North by Wang An-shih
Hair whiter still, I ache to see those long-ago northlands,
but keep to this refuge: goosefoot staff, windblown trees.
Pity the poor moon: all that bright beauty, and for whom?
It’s dusk. Countless mountains face each other in sorrow.
translated by David Hinton
Dream by Wang An-shih
Knowing lifetimes are like dream, I search for nothing now.
Searching for nothing, a mind is perfectly empty, perfectly
quiet, and so deep in dream it traces borderlands of dream
clear through river and shoreline sands to the end of dream.
translated by David Hinton
The Way It Is by Wang An-shih
Faint shadow, a house, and traces of rain.
In courtyard depths, the gate’s still closed
past noon. That lazy, I gaze at moss until
its green-azure comes seeping into robes.
translated by David Hinton
