From one thousand mountains, birds have vanished.
Over ten-thousand paths, not one footprint.
A lone boat, an old man in coarse cloak and hat:
Just he, fishing in the cold, river snow.
Original Chinese:
千山鳥飛絕
萬徑人蹤滅
孤舟蓑笠翁
獨釣寒江雪
drifting downstream,
the prow points our way
to open sea.
A ship crosses the ocean, in the darkness: darkness, black & endless no moon, no stars, just clouds -- thick & low clouds that can't be seen The ship has lights, but those lights know an event horizon Lights sometime glint against the waves, those roiling & undulating waves, and the lights bounce off the ship's hull But no one can see them, because if anyone could see them, the seers would be seen-- unless theirs is a ghost ship, piloted by literal ghosts, or some other agent of observation Maybe there is fog -- not enveloping the ship, (such mist would be felt on the skin of those on deck) but, rather, a fog between where the ship is, and where is should be For it is surely off course, listlessly drifting, all hope arrayed against edges: edges of ice & edges of the world Not that the world is flat, but, perhaps, it's not fully sculpted: maybe nothing lies outside the range of the seen: outside the bounds of experience It sounds crazy, but all kinds of crazy form in a mind submerged in darkness
the tilting boat slips the nipa labyrinth with silent ease
the boat sits as if the scene were painted in shades of blue
Tiger Riding for Beginners 