Chinese Poems (Meng Hao-jan, Wang Wei and Chia Tao)

Meng Hao-jan's poems, translated by David Hinton

On Reaching Han River

This land, not yet home - it's incredible.
Mountains crowd bamboo greens close,

level fields rare out beyond city walls,
ridges snaking up into distant clouds.

Ten thousand canyons reaching the Han,
a thousand peaks etched into azure sky,

gibbons cry confusions of Ch'u gorges
and a familiar drawl slurs people's talk.

Thickets of pepper trees crown rocks
and beehives nag stitched into vines

amid lingering snow in frosty spring.
Dawn's thinned away mist across this

landscape that's worn my horse ragged,
and a sail loves open expanses. Soaring

away downstream, I delight. In two days
I'll gaze into mulberry groves of home.

Roaming up to Master Jung's Hermitage
at Lumen-Empty Monastery

On paths where dragons and stars wander,
halfway up to peaks, I cross a rocky pass,

blur into blue cliffs, perpetual confusion,
adore idleness everywhere in green vines.

Then it's ease in blossoming forests, lofty
talk facing bamboo islands. Far from dust,

silent, empty: this Hen's - Foot Mountain
opening that first adept to enlightenment.

Encountering Snow on the Road
to Ch'ang-an

Far into distances on this Ch'ang - an road,
year - end skies spread away all ashen haze.

drifting snow filling rivers and mountains
new moon to old, dark blur beyond blur.

Arriving geese can't tell rock from water.
Crows cry hunger across abandoned fields.

I'm empty here, a grief-stricken traveler
gazing: no sign of cook -  smoke anywhere.

Poem by Wang Wei, translated by David Hinton

Facing Snow in Late Winter, I Think of
Recluse Hu's House

Ending a cold watch, drums announce dawn.
A clear mirror gazes into my haggard face.

Wind startles bamboo outside the window,
and outside the gate, snow fills mountains,

its empty scatter in a deep lane all silence,
its white drifting my courtyard all idleness.

I'm wondering about the old sage master:
are you content there, gates buried in snow?

Poems by Chia Tao, translated by Mike O'Connor

Winter Moon, Rain in Ch'ang-an,
Watching the Chung-Nan Mountains
in Snow

The Autumn Festival's
already passed;
in light rain,
snowy peaks emerge.

West Summit
briefly brightens;
the rain, a mere drizzle,
still falls.

The invading cold air
freezes waterfalls,
ices the inside
of white- cloud caves.

This morning,
wild geese of the Pa and Ch'an Rivers -
when will they reach
Hsiao and Hsiang river moonlight?

I think of those hermits
in stone houses,
doors open,
facing the snow.

Winter Night

Again winter catches out
a traveler far from home -
the cook's pot's empty
and the ladle, too.

Tears streak
a cold pillow;
human tracks
end in old mountains.

Ice forms
on the duckweed stream;
snow flies
in a bare willow wind.

Chickens still haven't announced
the first light of day
when I hear the cries
of two or three wild swans.

Chinese Poems

On Reaching the Ju River Dikes,
Sent to My Friend Lu

Road-weary, giving the horse a break,
I find myself gazing at Ju River dikes.

The Lo River is open now, free of snow.
On Sung peaks, twilight clouds linger,

trailed halfway across empty skies, lit
colours surging elemental and swelling.

I'm sending here this moment of itself-
how it keeps unfurling, unfurling.

Autumn Night, Setting Moon

Poised low in emptiness, a radiant moon
glistens incandescent in a drop of dew.

Trying to settle in, magpies startle away.
Fireflies float through open blinds, cold

shadow sparse in courtyard scholar-trees.
Fulling-stick rhythms tighten next door.

How will we ever meet in a land so vast?
Lingering out emptiness, I gaze and gaze.

A Farewell for Tu Huang

water weaving Ch'u and Wu into a single home village,
you set out on a spring river. It's all so vast and vague,

and your sails: when night falls, they'll rest at anchor
along the edge of heaven, that slice through the heart.

After Visiting Thought-Essance Monastery,
I return with White-Cloud Wang Following
Somewhere Behind

I left high valley long before midday,
and twilight was fading when I got home.

Looking up the mountain road, I find only
oxen and sheep. My gaze grows reverent.

Woodcutters lose each other in darkness,
the evening chill silences a last cricket,

and I still haven't closed my bramble gate.
I keep lingering, expecting you out there.

Out on the Road, Skies Clearing
 though I've left Pa's ridge rain behind,
I'm not free of Shu's muddy slopes

when skies open out, late light aslant,
mountain peaks breaching low clouds.

In grasses, everywhere, rainfall glistens.
Trickles keep stream swelling. Tonight,

a cold moon will light thoughts of home,
aching across such distances, distances.


All poems by Meng Hao-jan, translated by David Hinton.

Waiting for Ch'u Kuang-i, Who Never Arrives

The gates are already open. It's morning.
I rise and listen to passing carts , hoping:

when I hear your crystalline waist-jewels
clittering, I'll hurry out to welcome you.

A monestery bell sounds through gardens.
Sparse rain drifts across the spring city.

Realizing we won't see each other, I gaze
through windows, empty out anticipation.

Farewell

Here in these mountains, our farewell over,
sun sinking away, I close my brushwood gate.

Next spring, grasses will grow green again.
And you, my old friend - will you be back too?

Both poems by Wang Wei, translated by David Hinton.

Hsiang-Yang travels, Thinking of Meng Hao-jan

Emerald Ch'u mountain peaks and cliffs,
emerald Han River flowing full and fast.

Meng's writing survives here, its elegant
ch'i now facets of changing landscape.

But today, chanting the poems he left us
and thinking of him, I find his village

clear wind, all memory of him vanished.
Dusk light fading, Hsiang-yang empty,

I look south to Deer-Gate Mountain, haze
lavish, as if some fragrance remained,

but his old mountain home lost there:
mist thick and forests all silvered azure.

Night in the Palace with Ch'ien Hui

When the water-clock sounds three times, I realize it's midnight.
Lovely wind and cold moonlight everywhere in pine and bamboo,

we sit here in perfect idleness, empty and still, saying nothing:
just two people in the shadows of a medicine tree, just two people.

Visiting the Recluse Cheng

Having fathomed Tao, you went to dwell among simple villages
where bamboo grows thick, opening and closing your gate alone.

This isn't a mission or pilgrimage. I've come for no real reason:
just to sit out on your south terrace and gaze at those mountains.

Reply to Yuan Chen

You write out my poems, filling monastery walls,
and I crowd these door-screens here with yours.

Old friend, we never know where it is we'll meet-
we two duckweed leaves adrift on such vast seas.

All poems by Po Chu-I, translated by David Hinton.

Looking for T'eng's Old Recluse Home By Meng Hao-jan

Human endeavor's gone in a single morning
and a recluse's three paths vanish in weeds.

First I hear you're resting at the Chang River,
now you're among T'ai Mountain's wandering

dead. There's a pond here still tinged with ink,
but autumn's tumbled out of mountain clouds,

no hidden boats to find. You understood, hid
all beneath heaven inside all beneath heaven.

By Meng Hao-jan, translated by David Hinton.

Chinese Poetry

Lingering Out Farewell with Wang Wei

Those isolate depths of quiet: why do I wait
morning after morning, unable to return?

I'm happy to go search out fragrant herbs,
but I'll long for you, I should know by now

it's enough nurturing isolate depths of quiet
back home again, my old garden gate closed.

Adrift at Wu-ling

Wu-ling's river thinned out, my long-ago
boat glides on into peach-blossom forests

where headwaters harboured such quiet
mystery: immortal families so deep away.

Water meanders, blurs into blue cliffs,
darkens green beneath a crossing cloud.

I sit listening. Idle gibbons cry out, mind
sudden clarity far beyond a world of dust.

All by Meng Hao Jan

Deer Park

No one seen. Among empty mountains,
hints of drifting voice, faint, no more.

Embracing these deep woods, late sunlight
flares on green moss again, and rises.

By Wang Wei. 

82

in the nearby mountains, a green mountain haze
on the distant sea, white sea clouds
the chatter of birds is soundless
the roar of gibbons-absolutely silent

166

autumn mountains: brocades of light
the clouds: endless beauty
I lean on my staff, contemplate crimson leaves
silent: as the birds streaming above me

By Shih-Shu

7/7 in a Strange Village and After Shih-Te

7/7 in a Strange Village

7/7 in a strange village, at a transit inn,
the grief of distant wandering sharpens.

No girls busy threading festive needles,
thoughts of my homeworld towers empty,

tangled winds thin summer heat away.
A new moon rises. It climbs into autumn.

Who can bear those Star River distances?
I gaze deep, deep and far, Dipper and Ox.

By Meng Hao-jan

After Shih-Te

my ragged cloak is streaked with mountain shadows
my torn-out sandals scrape bare prints through the moss
home again, I wash my legs, bury my head in my hands...
am I warm? am I cold? I no longer know

By Shih-Shu

A Candlelion Poem and A Good-Talking Candle by Richard Brautigan

A Candlelion Poem

                             

                             For Michael

Turn a candle inside out

and you've got the smallest

portion of a lion standing

there at the edge of the

    shadows.

A Good-Talking Candle

I had a good-talking candle
last night in my bedroom.

I was very tired but I wanted
somebody to be with me,
    so I lit a candle

and listened to its comfortable
voice of light until I was asleep.

By Richard Brautigan from the collection The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster.

Up Early at Fish - Creek Lake by Meng Hao Jan

Dawn spreads early luster across the east.
A clamor of island birds just startled away,

and lying in a bed at the mouth of Fish Creek,
I hear unseen paddles fade into distances.

Sunrise thins mists away, and I start to see
how replete an expanse my river course is:

young women rising late as usual, exquisite
lit reflections traced among drifting froth,

gibbons down to drink, skittish at the river,
otters surfacing to sacrifice captured fish.

On a boat, sorrow's always far off. And today
I'll sail clear skies all wide - open radiance!

By Meng Hao Jan, part of the Mountain Poems of Meng Hao Jan, translated by David Hinton.

Your Catfish Friend, by Richard Brautigan and Lumen - Empty Monastery, Visiting Dharma - Guile with a friend from Cypress Terrace by Meng Hao Jan

Your Catfish Friend

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
     one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
     of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
      somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
     at peace,
and ask youself,"I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."

From The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster.


Lumen - Empty Monastery, Visiting Dharma - Guile with a friend from Cypress Terrace

It's a delight to meet, set out, and together
visit Master Dharma - Guile's ch'an stillness

where people never go. At his stone hut
we only find a tiger dozing in a hammock,

shadowy wind harbouring perennial snows,
springwater welling up into pine cascades.

We came from lives so different - but here,
dharma mats offer a joy we share utterly.

New Years Ever at Chang Tzu-jung's House at Lo-ch'eng

Amid seas of cloud sailed in Ou and Min
island anchorages all windblown swells,

somehow it's New Year's, and somehow
I'm gazing at my old village friend here

so far from home. I a sky-raft wanderer,
you caught amid tangles, your path lost:

how many times can we meet in this life
when farewells last ten years and more?

By Meng Hao-jan, The Mountain Poems of Meng Hao-jan translated by David Hinton.

Richard Brautigan "A High Building in Singapore".

It's a high building in Singapore that holds the only beauty for this San Francisco day where I am walking down the street, feeling terrible and watching my mind function with the efficiency of a liquid pencil.

A young mother passes by talking to her little girl who is really too small to talk, but she's talking anyway and very excitedly to her mother about something. I can't quite make out what she is saying because she's so little.

I mean, this is a tiny kid.

Then her mother answers her to explode my day with a goofy illumination. "It was a high building in Singapore," she says to the little girl who enthusiastically replies like a bright sound-coloured penny, " Yes, it was a high building in Singapore!"

Written by Richard Brautigan, part of the collection "Revenge of the Lawn". Published by Rebel Inc, Canon Gate, 1997. First published 1972. 

Chinese Poem

Auspicious Arrival of Yung T'ao

This morning
laughing together-
just a few days
in a hundred.

After birds pass
over Sword Gate, it's calm;
invaders from the south
have withdrawn to the Lu River wilds.

We walk on frosted ground
praising chrysanthemums bordering fields;
sit on the east edge of the woods
waiting for the moon to rise.

Not having to be alone
is happiness;
we do not talk
of failure or success.

By Chia Tao, Translated by Mike O'Connor.

Chinese Poem and Richard Brautigan.

Seeking but not Finding the Recluse
Under pines
I ask the boy:

he says "My master's gone
to gather herbs.

I only know
he's on this mountain,

But the clouds are too deep
to know where."
By Chia Tao, translated by Mike O'Connor.

Excerpt from "In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan"
Moths fluttered above the light that came out of the river from the tombs below. There were five or six moths fluttering over each tomb.
              Suddenly a big trout jumped out of the water above a tomb and got one of the moths. The other moths scattered and then came back again, and the same trout jumped again and got another moth. He was a smart old trout.
              The trout did not jump any more and the moths fluttered peacefully above the light coming from the tombs.

From the chapter "Vegetables".

Chinese Poetry

Returning Home to Deer-Gate Mountain At Night
As Day Fades into dusk, the bell at a mountain temple sounds.
Fish-Bridge Island is loud with people clamoring at the ferry,

and others follow sandy shores toward their river village.
But returning home to Deer-Gate, I paddle my own little boat,

Deer-Gate's incandescent moonlight opening misty forests,
until suddenly I've entered old Master P'ang's isolate realm.

Cliff the gate, pines the path - it's forever still and silent,
just this one recluse, this mystery coming and going of itself.
Meng Hao-Jan (Ran): The Mountain Poems of Meng Hao-Jan, poem translated by David Hinton.

Mourning Yin Yao
Returning you to Stone-Tower Mountain, we bid farewell
among ash-green pine and cypress, then return home.

Of your bones now buried white cloud, this much remains
forever: streams cascading empty towards human realms.
Wang Wei: The Selected Poems of Wang Wei, poem translated by David Hinton.

Reading Ch'an Sutras
In all difference appearance reveals, there's no difference,
and even dwelling beyond any trace of residue is itself residue.

Forget words in the midst of words, and you will see through it all.
Root out dream in the midst of dream, and you double abscence.

But how can you harvest fruit from the blossoms of emptiness,
and how can you catch a meal of fish in some lakewater mirage?

To still relentless change is Ch'an, and Ch'an is change itself.
No Ch'an and no change - there lies what seems in what seems.
Po Chu-I: The Selected Poems of Po Chu-I, poem translated by David Hinton.

At the Hua – Shan hermitage of adept Ma Tai
Jade Woman,
"washing her hair in a basin,"
is solitary, high,
indescribable.

Waterfalls spill
from Lotus Peak's summit;
the Yellow River
sweeps past the base of Mount Hua.

Here, small birds break off;
the woods conceal tigers;
gibbons liver
where no people do.

After rain;
the autumn moon;
on rock;
old pines and a gate.
Chia Tao: When I Find You Again It Will Be In Mountains, poem translated by Mike O’Connor.

Written on the Wall at Master Wei Feng’s
The grassy path
Leads to deep cloister.
Arriving in Autumn
Eases my heart
Even more.

In town
No one I've known long.
Outside the gate, another mountain.
Exploring the silence gives poetic
Thought birth. Fasting
Confers a sick look.

On freezing nights
You arrange to meet me often:
Silent talk beyond
Human Space.
Pao Hsien: And the Clouds Should Know Me By Now, poem translated by Paul Hansen.