Poetry by Yang Wan-Li

 Crossing Open-Anew Lake


A fisherman's taking his boat across the lake.
My old eyes trace his path all the way, his precise

wavering in and out of view. Then it gets strange:
suddenly he's a lone goose balanced on a bent reed.

On a Boat, Crossing Through Peace Humane District (No.3)

Out on the merest wisp of a fishing boat, two small boys
give up the struggle. They ship their paddles and just sit.

It seems so strange. No rain in sight, they start opening
umbrellas. Not for shelter. They want so sail on the wind!

Translated by David Hinton.

In relation to this: http://skyraft.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/pedernal-for-georgia-okeeffe/

A poem by Po Chu-I

In The Mountains

It will come: the great transformation of seas to mulberry fields.
Heaven and earth seething, all wind-churned swells and billows,

feasting whales and battling dragons will turn the waves to blood.
But what do these fish know, happily wandering a deep stream?

By Po Chu-I, translated by David Hinton.

Poems of China

On Lantern Festival at Imperial Request

A forest of jeweled candles forms a thousand peaks
the royal gate is graced by his iridescent presence
the procession isn't for the year's first moon
but for sharing joy of the people
the sky's clear light lasts all night
the world's mild air foreshadows the spring
the reason all wish him blessings of Huafeng
for more than forty years his benevolence has grown

By Ts'ai Hsiang, translated by Red Pine

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.

By Meng Hao'jan, translated by David Hinton.

5. Duckweed Lake

Beside this spring lake deep and wide, I find
myself waiting for your light boat to return:

duckweed slowly drifted together behind you,
and now hanging willows sweep it open again.

By Wang Wei, translated by David Hinton.

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 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.

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.