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.