Two Chinese Poems

Bamboo Midst Cottage

Sitting alone in silent bamboo dark,
I play a ch'in, settle into breath chants.

In these forest depths no one knows
this moon come bathing me in light.

By Wang Wei, translated by David Hinton.

Bamboo Mountain's Eastern Pond

In a small pond east of Bamboo Mountain Terrace, fresh
water lilies and duckweed, a confusion of early green.

I'm a wanderer here, and taking a lamp out past midnight,
I find a pair of egrets startled away, snow-white in flight.

By Po Chu-I, translated by David Hinton.

Poems from China

Poems by Meng hao-jan/translated by David Hinton

Autumn Begins

Autumn begins unnoticed. Nights slowly lengthen,
and little by little, clear winds turn colder and colder,

summer's blaze giving way. My thatch hut grows still.
At the bottom stair, in bunchgrass, lit dew shimmers.

Spring Dawn

In spring sleep, dawn arrives unnoticed.
Suddenly, all around, I hear birds in song.

A loud night. Wind and rain came, tearing
blossoms down, Who knows few or many?

Poem by Wang Wei/translated by David Hinton

Sent to a Monk from Buddha-Peak Monastery

Buddha-Peak monk,
Buddha-Peak Monk
returned to Kettle-Fold Mountain last autumn, didn't come back in spring.

Bird song and tumbling blossoms scatter through tangled confusion away.
Streamside door and mountain window all idleness and silence, silence-

up in those gorges, who would guess the great human drama even exists?
And when people in town gaze out, they see distant empty-cloud mountains.

Poem by Hsieh Ling-yun/translated by David Hinton

9

Nearby in the west are
Aspen and Guest Peaks sharing a mountain,
Halcyon and Emperor along a lazy ridgeline,

Stone-House Mountain facing Stone-Screen Cliff
across a gorge carved below Tier and Orphan,

its riverbanks thick bamboo colouring the current green,
reflected cliff-light turning mountain streamwater red.

Here the moon's hidden, darkened by peaks and summits,
and in rising wind, a forest of branches breaks into song.

Poem by Wang An-Shih/translated by Red Pine (Bill Porter)

North Mountain

North Mountain sends down green flooding the embankment
the city moat and crescent lake shimmer in the light
counting every falling petal I forget the time
searching for sweet-smelling plants I return home late

Chinese Poetry (Rivers)

Poems by Hsieh Ling-yun/Translated by David Hinton


6


Here where I live,
lakes on the left, rivers on the right,
you leave islands, follow shores back

to mountains out front, ridges behind.
Looming east and toppling aside west,

they harbour ebb and flow of breath,
arch across and snake beyond, devious

churning and rolling into distances,
clifftop ridge lines hewn flat and true.


7

Nearby in the east are
Risen-Fieldland and Downcast-Lake,
Western-Gorge and Southern-Vally,

Stone-Plowshares and Stone-Rapids,
Forlorn-Millstone and Yellow-Bamboo.

There are waters tumbling a thousand feet in flight
and forests curtained high over countless canyons,

endless streams flowing far and away into distant rivers
and cascades branching deeper into nearby creeks.

24

There are fish like
snake-fish and trout, perch and trench,
red-eye and yellow-gill, dace and carp,

bream, sturgeon, skate, mandarin-fish,
flying-fish, bass, mullet and wax-fish:

a rainbow confusion of colours blurred,
glistening brocade, cloud-fresh schools

nibbling duckweed, frolicking in waves,
drifting among ghost-eye, flowing deep.

Some drumming their gills and leaping through whitewater,
others beating their tails and struggling back beneath swells,

shad and salmon, each in their season, stream up into creeks and shallows,
sunfish and knife-fish follow rapids further, emerge in mountain springs.

Following Axe-Bamboo Stream, I Cross Over A Ridge And
Hike on Along The River

Though the cry of gibbons means sunrise,
its radiance hasn't touched this valley all

quiet mystery. Clouds gather below cliffs,
and there's still dew glistening on blossoms

when I set out along a wandering stream,
climbing into narrow canyons far and high.

Ignoring my robe to wade through creeks,
I scale cliff-ladders and cross distant ridges

to the river beyond. It snakes and twists,
but I follow it, happy just meandering along

past pepperwort and duckweed drifting deep,
rushes and wild rice in crystalline shallows.

Reaching tiptoe to ladle sips from waterfalls
and picking still unfurled leaves in forests,

I can almost see that lovely mountain spirit
in a robe of fig leaves and sash of wisteria.

Gathering orchids brings no dear friends
and picking hemp-flower no open warmth,

but the heart finds its beauty in adoration,
and you can't talk out such shadowy things:

in the eye's depths you're past worry here,
awakened into things all wandering away.