The mountain and the squirrel Had a quarrel; And the former called the latter ‘Little Prig.’ Bun replied, ‘You are doubtless very big; But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together, To make up a year And a sphere. And I think it no disgrace To occupy my place. If I'm not so large as you, You are not so small as I, And not half so spry. I'll not deny you make A very pretty squirrel track; Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut.’
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.
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.
“Venerable Ingatha” by Guan Xiu [One of his 16 Arahat paintings]
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.
