Who says my poems are poems?
They aren't poems at all.
Only when you understand my poems aren't poems
Can we talk poetry.
This translation by Sam Hamill in The Poetry of Zen (2004) Boston: Shambhala, p. 159
The trade-wind jingles the rings in the nets around the racks
by the docks on Indian River.
It is the same jingle of the water among the roots under the
banks of the palmettoes,
It is the same jingle of the red-bird breasting the orange-trees
out of the cedars
Yet there is no spring in Florida, neither in boskage perdu, nor
on the nunnery beaches.
The chatter of little people
Breaks on my purpose
Like the water-drops which slowly wear the rocks to powder.
And while I laugh
My spirit crumbles at their teasing touch.
Could that sweet Darkness where they dwell
Be once disclosed to us
The clamor for their loveliness
Would burst the Loneliness —
Some shoots and stalks stand out --
Taller than the masses.
Their form eludes pursuit,
Sound slips through, like gases.
Great lines are always disjunct:
Don't weave with mid'ling lyrics.
They're pent up and peerless:
Chop them? A win that's pyrrhic.
Jade flecks make mountains shimmer,
Pearly waters enchant.
The thicket mustn't be clipped
If Kingfisher's glory, grant.
Stitched words end under snow,
Work the weft, steady and slow.
The original in Simplified Chinese is:
或苕发颖竖，离众绝致。
形不可逐，响难为系。
块孤立而特峙，非常音之所纬。
心牢落而无偶，意徘徊而不能揥。
石韫玉而山辉，水怀珠而川媚。
彼榛楛之勿翦，亦蒙荣于集翠。
缀下里于白雪，吾亦济夫所伟。
“Truth,” said a traveller,
“Is a rock, a mighty fortress;
“Often have I been to it,
“Even to its highest tower,
“From whence the world looks black.”
“Truth,” said a traveller,
“Is a breath, a wind,
“A shadow, a phantom;
“Long have I pursued it,
“But never have I touched
“The hem of its garment.”
And I believed the second traveller;
For truth was to me
A breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom,
And never had I touched
The hem of its garment.
Sleet and rain, as if the pot were boiling.
Winds whack like the crack of an axe.
An old man, an old man,
At sunset, crept into my hut.
He sighed. He sighed as if to himself,
"These rulers, so cruel. Why, tell me
Why they must steal till we starve,
Then slice the skin from our bones?
For a song from some beauty,
They'll go back on sworn words;
For a song from some tart,
They'll tear down our huts;
For a sweet song or two,
They'll slaughter ten thousand like me,
Like you. Weep as you will,
Let your hair turn white,
Let your whole clan go hungry...
No good wind will blow,
No gentle breeze
Begin again.
Lord Locust Plague and Baron Bandit Bug,
One east, one west, one north, one south.
We're surrounded.
NOTE: This the J.P. Seaton translation found in The Poetry of Zen (2004); Shambhala Publications: Boston, MA, pp. 67-68. For the author’s name, Seaton uses “Kuan Hsiu,” the Wade-Giles romanization of the name.
To have known him, to have loved him
After loneness long;
And then to be estranged in life,
And neither in the wrong;
And now for death to set his seal—
Ease me, a little ease, my song!
By wintry hills his hermit-mound
The sheeted snow-drifts drape,
And houseless there the snow-bird flits
Beneath the fir-trees’ crape:
Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine
That hid the shyest grape.
Let the place of the solitaires
Be a place of perpetual undulation.
Whether it be in mid-sea
On the dark, green water-wheel,
Or on the beaches,
There must be no cessation
Of motion, or of the noise of motion,
The renewal of noise
And manifold continuation;
And, most, of the motion of thought
And its restless iteration,
In the place of the solitaires,
Which is to be a place of perpetual undulation.
Whatever lives must meet its end --
That is the way it has always been.
If Taoist immortals were once alive,
Where are they today?
The old man who gave me wine
Claimed it was the wine of the immortals.
One small cup and a thousand worries vanish;
Two, and you'll even forget about heaven.
But is heaven really so far away?
It is best to trust in the Tao.
A crane in the clouds has magic wings
To cross the earth in a moment.
It's been forty years of struggle
Since I first became reclusive.
Now that my body is nearly dead,
My heart is pure. What more is there to say?
NOTE: This is the translation of Sam Hamill found in The Poetry of Zen (2004); Shambhala Publications: Boston, MA, p.24.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 