Glass was the Street - in Tinsel Peril
Tree and Traveller stood.
Filled was the Air with merry venture
Hearty with Boys the Road.
Shot the lithe Sleds like Shod vibrations
Emphacized and gone
It is the Past's supreme italic
Makes the Present mean --
The moon sets; crows caw below frosty skies.
Boats, moored to maples -- lamps glow like cat eyes.
Cold Mountain Temple, outside Gusu's bounds:
The midnight bell cuts off soft water sounds.
When Daniel Boone goes by, at night,
The phantom deer arise
And all is lost, wild America
Is burning in their eyes.
Whate'er is Born of Mortal Birth
Must be consumed with the Earth
To rise from Generation free:
Then what have I to do with thee?
The Sexes sprung from Shame & Pride,
Blow'd in the morn; in evening died;
But Mercy chang'd Death to Sleep;
The Sexes rose to work & weep.
Thou, Mother of my Mortal part,
With cruelty didst mould my Heart,
And with false self-deceiving tears
Didst bind my Nostrils, Eyes, & Ears:
Didst close my Tongue in senseless clay,
And me to Mortal Life betray.
The Death of Jesus set me free:
Then what have I to do with thee?
The monk’s entire body is present
in this great circle.
Xutang’s true face and eye
emerge from it.
The blind singer’s love song delights
flowers for ten thousand springs.
Translation by Kazuaki Tanahashi and David Schneider in Essential Zen (1994) HarperSanFrancisco.
Away with funeral music -- set
The pipe to powerful lips --
The cup of life's for him that drinks
And not for him that sips.
Remove away that black'ning church:
Remove away that marriage hearse:
Remove away that man of blood:
You'll quite remove the ancient curse.
When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom.
Only the Blessed of Lethe's dews
May stoop to drink. And yet,
Were their Elysium mine to lose,
Could I, sans all repining, choose
Life's sorrows to forget?
The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted opon Earth --
The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity --
