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.

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 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