May 12, 2004 - 4:05 p.m.

No more updates for a while.
I say these poems are nice.  I say you 
should read a bit, then come back later 
and read some more:


.Most Poems from The Silk Dragon: 
Translations from the Chinese by Arthur Sze

Read introduction here / 
http://www.olympus.net/personal/brewster/PDFs/Sze%20sample.pdf

The comments are all his taken from an 
interview.
3 are translated by another guy.

               ...from ancient to modern =>>



T'ao Ch'ien  (365-427)
I've been drawn to the clarity of T'ao 
Ch'ien's lines

Returning to the Fields and Gardens (II)

I plant beans below the southern hill:
there grasses flourish and bean sprouts are sparse.
At dawn, I get up, clear out a growth of weeds,
then go back, leading the moon, a hoe over my shoulder.

Now the path is narrow, grasses and bushes are high.
Evening dew moistens my clothes;
but so what if my clothes are wet -
I choose not to avoid anything that comes 




Wang Wei (701-761)
 I loved the sharp images, the paradoxes, 
and intensity of his chueh-chu 
(quatrains). I read many of them and 
sifted through to select the ones 
that most interested me.

Hsin-yi Village

At the tips of branches,
******** hibiscus
opening red calyxes
******** deep in the mountains.
A stream, hut:
******** yet no one.
The flowers bloom
******** and fall, bloom and fall 



Li Po (701-762)

Song of Ch'ang Kan

When my hair just began to cover my forehead,
I was plucking flowers, playing in front of the gate.
You came along riding a bamboo stick horse,
circling and throwing green plums.
Together we lived in Ch'ang-kan Village
never suspicious of our love.
At fourteen, I became your wife,
my shy face never opened.
I lowered my head, faced the dark wall,
to your thousand calls, never a response.
At fifteen, I became enlightened,
was willing to be dust with you, ashes with you.
Always preserving you in my heart,
why should I ascend the terrace to look for your return?
At sixteen, you traveled far, through
Chü-t'ang Gorge, by rocks and swirling waters…
And in the fifth month, they are impassable,
monkeys wailing to the sky…
By our door where you left footprints,
mosses, one by one, grew over;
too deep to be swept away!
Leaves fall early in the autumn wind.
In lunar August, yellow butterflies
hovered in pairs over the west garden grasses.
My heart hurt at this sight, beauty flickering…
Sooner or later, if you return through the Three Pa district,
send home first. I will meet you,
ignore the long distance, even to Long Wind Sands. 



Tu Fu (712-770)

Night at the Tower

At year's end, yin and yang
******** hasten the shortening daylight.
Frost and snow at the sky's edge
******** clear into a crisp, cold night.
At fifth watch, drums and bugles
******** sound a piercing grief,
while over Three Gorges, shadows
******** of the Milky Way sway and rock.
In the countryside, wild sobs
******** resounded through homes after the destruction.
Here and there, tribal songs
******** of fishermen and woodcutters arise.
Lying-Dragon and Leaping-Horse
******** have disintegrated into yellow dust;
let the news of all our affairs
******** … be still and hushed.


Moonlight Night

This evening in Fu-chou my wife
can only look out alone at the moon.
From Ch'ang-an I pity my children
who cannot yet remember or understand.

Her hair is damp in the fragrant mist.
Her arms are cold in the clear light.
When will we lean beside the window
and the moon shine on our dried tears?


Lone Wild Goose

Alone, the wild goose refuses food and drink,
   his calls searching for the flock.
Who feels compassion for that single shadow
   vanishing in a thousand distant clouds?
You watch, even as it flies from sight,
   its plaintive calls cutting through you.
The noisy crows ignore it:
   the bickering, squabbling multitudes.

         tr. Sam Hamill


I Stand Alone

A falcon hovers at the edge of the sky.
Two gulls drift slowly up the river.

Vulnerable while they ride the wind,
they coast and glide with ease.

Dew is heavy on the grass below,
the spider’s web is ready.

Heaven’s ways include the human:
among a thousand sorrows, I stand alone.

        tr. Sam Hamill


P’eng-ya Road

I remember fleeing the rebels
through dangerous northern canyons,

the midnight moon shining bright
on narrow P’eng-ya Road.

So poor we went on foot,
we were embarrassed meeting strangers.

A few birds sang in the valleys,
but we met no one returning.

My daughter was so starved she bit me,
she screamed her painful hunger.

I damped her mouth shut tight,
fearful of wolves and tigers.

She struggled hard against me,
she cried and cried.

My son was sympathetic
and searched the wilds for food.

Then five days of heavy rain arrived,
and we trudged through freezing mud.

We had no coats, no shelter,
we were dressed in cold, wet clothes.

Struggling, struggling, we made
but a mile or two each day.

We ate wild fruits and berries,
and branches made our roof.

Mornings we slogged through water;
evenings we searched for skyline smoke.

We stopped at a marsh
to prepare our climb to the pass,

and met a Mr. Sun
whose standards are high as clouds.

We came through the dark
and lamps were lit, gates opening before us.

Servants brought warm water
so we could bathe our aching feet.

They hung paper banners
in our honor.

Mrs. Sun came out with all her children.
They wept for our condition.

My children slept, exhausted,
until we roused them with food.

Our host took a vow
he’d always remain my brother.

His home was made our home,
to provide for every comfort.

Who could imagine in such troubled times
he’d bare his heart and soul?

A year has passed since that fated night.
The Barbarians still wage war.

If I had the wings of the wild goose,
I’d fly to be at his side. 

          tr. Sam Hamill



Li Ho (790-816)
his obsessions with time and mortality, 
his hallucinatory use of colors, his need 
to gallop on horseback each morning for 
visionary fragments of poems to come to 
him—all of this struck me as hallmarks of 
a peculiarly modern poet.

Autumn Comes

Wind in the plane tree startles the heart: a grown man's grief.
By dying lamplight, crickets are weeping cold threads.
Who will ever read the green bamboo slips of this book?
Or stop the ornate worms from gnawing powdery holes?
Such thoughts tonight must disentangle in my gut.
In the humming rain, a fragrant spirit consoles this poet.
On an autumn grave, a ghost chants Pao Chao's poem,
and his spiteful blood, buried a thousand years, is now green jade.





Li Shang-yin (813-858)
the oblique exactitude of Li Shang-yin
Li Shang-yin's untitled poems struck me 
as charged with longing; they impressed 
me as some of the great love poems in 
classical Chinese

Untitled (I)

The chance to meet is difficult,
******** but parting is even more difficult.
The east wind is powerless
******** as the hundred flowers wither.
A spring silkworm spins silk
******** up to the instant of death.
A candle only stops weeping
******** when its wick becomes ash.
In the morning mirror, she grieves
******** that the hair on her temples whitens.
Chanting poems in the evening,
******** she only senses the moonlight's cold.
From here, P'eng Mountain is not too far.
******** O Green Bird, seek, seek her out. 





Li Ch'ing-chao (1084-1151)

To the Tune of "Intoxicated in the Shadow of Flowers"

Thin mist, dense clouds, a grief-stricken day;
auspicious incense burns in the gold animal.
Once again, it is the joyous mid-autumn festival,
but a midnight chill
touches my jade pillow and silk bed-screen.

I drink wine by the eastern fence in the yellow dusk.
Now a dark fragrance fills
my sleeves and makes me spin.
The bamboo blinds sway in the west wind.
And I am even thinner than a yellow flower.




Wen I-to (1899-1946)

Perhaps

Perhaps you have wept and wept, and can weep no more.
Perhaps. Perhaps you ought to sleep a bit;
then don't let the nighthawk cough, the frogs
croak, or the bats fly.

Don't let the sunlight open the curtain onto your eyes.
Don't let a cool breeze brush your eyebrows.
Ah, no one will be able to startle you awake:
I will open an umbrella of dark pines to shelter your sleep.

Perhaps you hear earthworms digging in the mud,
or listen to the root hairs of small grasses sucking up water.
Perhaps this music you are listening to is lovelier
than the swearing and cursing noises of men.

Then close your eyelids, and shut them tight.
I will let you sleep; I will let you sleep.
I will cover you lightly, lightly with yellow earth.
I will slowly, slowly let the ashes of paper money fly. 


The Last Day

Water sobs and sobs in the bamboo pipe gutter.
Green tongues of banana leaves lick at the windowpanes.
The four surrounding whitewashed walls are receding,
and I alone cannot fill such a large room.

A fire in a bowl burns and burns in my heart.
Silent, I wait for the faraway guest to arrive.
I feed the fire cobwebs, rat droppings,
and also the scaly skins of spotted snakes.

Now the crowing of a cock hastens a heap of ashes.
A gust of dark wind gropes at my mouth.
Ah, the guest is right in front of me!
I close my eyelids then follow him out.

 
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