292
a word of farewell,
well a few

Tian Tai is the highest mountain
reaches the Red City gate

don’t worry – the beasts there protect errant monks
the apes will be happy to carry your robes

if just to purify my eyes
I’ll sweep that mountain of arrogant flowers

my character’s another question
for that I’ll filter the spring, sift out mud and sand

things of the spirit are naturally straight
‘ten thousand pines, none slant’

was written by someone who lived on the moon


293
appreciating roses

surprising how red
a thousand, ten thousand

the fire for Buddha’s gone out
just this fragrance

more than enough
under these flowers

we chant, drink
make our names with the brush

a group of officers send an officer off
cart and horse pause

sniff at the dusk

294
the scholar goes south

sad poems are all about parting
how can the wine or the flowers assist?

water a thousand li stretches off
no harbour in this reckless wind

the south is all tales and
when you’ve them by heart

come home, tell all but
right now – better start

295
words of comfort for the traveller

autumn wind in white hair
this head of nobody

when you see the crane’s smiling
you’ll know you’ve arrived

monk, please don’t sigh
the isolation will cure you

that’s the whole point of being a monk
pure clear landscapes make sparse the mind

I often look at the moon in the mirror
that way there’ll be three of us
even when there’s no wine

296
I fail to persuade you to stay

not even a parting boat
stays the sun

the old man
walks home from the river

dusk calls him


297
farewell to Dan Ran
twelve poems

1
his bones like snow

his presence and attention as of the lotus

his poems resound like the voice of the thunder god
make you look up and sigh without cease

bright jade in such dreams

cold bamboo plays
Shakyamani’s tune

if I can’t come back in a year
I’ll be the man in the yellow wood
south of the sky

how far from still this heart
so listing


2
like to sit on the grass
it takes in the shore

so vast the sea
and what but water

seeks no permission
to ebb or to flow?

your hands in the wavelets
of Jing Hu now green

Yan Mountain flowers
bring spring to heart

yes – these clothes are smelly rags
what’s a sage to do?

at least in solitude there’s work:
the sutras – our shabby task

to translate from beyond
where words have yet been


3
drinking the river wine from a bronze vessel
striking the metal and with this note sing

I am the one who pounds the waves home
worship the woman of the river, weed-wreathed

step on the bow, I balance on planks
coir of my raincoat dances in air

laugh with that famous old drum tune Yu Yang Can
how useless the pride in composing such songs

leaning leisurely on a green bamboo pole
my feet in the wash and my head in the breeze

not even the bright sun can bite me


4
this rough well ventilated cloak I wear
– don’t think it’s afeared of the water

short oars draw over wild rice and cattails
locals come to the bank to watch the boats pass

I laugh at sailors tussling with waves
what kind of glory is that?

better to pick up a knife and bamboo
make a bow, take down birds

to call dinner

5
frightened ducks scatter through the wild rice
the whole crop shakes with fear

mandarins – their colours betray them
a man of the water is clean

at least, though lacking contrast
might muddy some eyes

those village landlubbers bound for exams
gingerly they step aboard

ooh, serious… the boat, the boatman
pole, paddle all laughing


6
the teacher’s gift to be understood
but what can you read in my face?

my daughter’s in another poem
the milk in there’s no good

an old village for our homeland
jie jie the bird sings there

for distance picture the nun’s grave efforts
to tempt the girls to vegetables

Bai Fu – my ‘hundred fortune’ daughter
this simple meal reminds me of home

7
the scent of poetry but faint here
though paper is plentiful
crumbling to dust

on the bank of the river
heart in the waves

bronze cup to brim
skimpy raincoat
let’s see how strange a poem
such bits and pieces make

words of passion on horseback home
after the storm a breeze stays

I’ll write some words on the still wet wall
people might look up to read
they might not

a temple here makes straight the mountain
the old man’s tears come pacing down

8
so many temples
and the mountains here famous too

wonderful music
beside a still stream
oars ply forth and back

trees and rocks vie for attention
red, green, what else?

the taste of all this
remembered from far


9
Bao En and Bao De
these temple names meaning
to repay virtue and to repay kindness

mandarins like gold piled
in the main hall
bananas, bamboo
and the green chapel light

voice of the sutra
soft as a child’s
chime clean and cold
as a spring

my guts around my feet all piled
there’s a journey I’ll go

it numbs the mind
to count the miles

till death

10
step by step
the grass grows greener
day by day deeper the stream

blue sky for my temple
cassia breathes

it’s through poems
in the past we’ve met

you visit my blog
I’ve seen your website

flying leaves scatter east
my brush leaning west

head sick on my pillow
think of your words
and so sadness goes



11
tugging at the teacher’s hem
saying goodbye

why must he go?

he stammers
of course he wants to say
‘to write – that’s why…
make splendid my penury
with words, which unlike me,
go on beyond the sunset’

dizzy with hunger
already you see
how weak his reasoning has become

being a poet could leave you quite lean

don’t you know
there’s a long list of writers
who died of poverty

why not say instead
‘I yearn to be lamented
however long it lasts’


12
instead of writing poems
wouldn’t it be better to grow some wings?

or closer to the ground
imagine just sounding like a pheasant

so much wiser than offering advice
to folk higher up the food chain

my poem like a withered leaf
dangling from a frozen branch

notice the ice arrested spittle
the eye just happens to have caught

thread by thread the garment comes
by threads the poets back goes bare

298
returning from the temple
to build houses for the homeless

a Daoist ten years
an open book

comes to meet his Daoist friends
goes back to his home far away

homespun clad
he’s left his cap of colourful jade

places all his hopes in spring water
that it’s pure, that it’s cool enough
299
farewell to the scholar returning home

voice chanting for pines, for cassias cold
voice from the traveler’s guts

birds that live beneath your floor
of fixed abode, yet they fear to travel

I would like to visit your place
but it’s a long way to go

rain in the mountains and rivers are pure
wheat torn from its stalks, wind ruffles the stubble

a tear falls into ink, city dust stains the shirt
no reason for this poem to be given

but that the heart can be jogged to remember300
for someone else now returning having failed an exam

sea as tranquil as the soul departing
it gets warmer though

when he was young this boy thought deeply
on what would be required to fly

but he got stuck in the observatory too long
now it’s all a little abstract

and guess what? he can’t fly

take the osprey – it chooses a tree
and other birds leave well alone

or a fast horse through city streets
everyone gets out of its way

bird and beast hail wind, summon rain
head in clouds, heart full of thunder

can make the mute folk shout
and shout till this world’s done

he misses the roads would bring him home
the farewell feast among the flowers

no parting from the winds in Spring
no use to linger after the parting
301
the Daoist in the mountains

a thousand years walking
he leaves no tracks

spends a day in the mortal world
they mob him like a rock star

he knows whom he’ll take along
cloud wreathed see his apprentice
302
seeing an imperial envoi off

looking over the water strains eyes
some countries are just too far off

the autumn sea too wide
too much duckweed

my thanks beyond the sun and moon
my dream in waves lost

as wide as the mind the ocean goes
and lonely as the one boat tossed

even with a sturdy stick
until my back’s quite bent
won’t bring me

hundreds of poems for your farewell penned
all about heroes, their talents, fine views

mine, among all these, the most useless
sound and soul stolen, what more can I say?

but that I hope your own words forestall war
I don’t wish to go where you’re going today


303
so you’re off to the capital

the east is just for tourists now
Chang An is the place to be

hat and sword of a VIP
you’re off to the capital

I know it’s not the emperor in particular
it’s just that celestial feeling

don’t think of me
I’m just a sad sick tadpole

even in the crummy dust of my province
still kept on a string

but I can look up yet
make words which may outlast this world

blue clouds, white hair… see me?
anyone here for a poem?


304
intimations of mortality

you start out reading poetry
then suddenly your hair is white

no need to kowtow
to every well fed young official

you never noticed
but the fact is you’ve come to care
about the mountain

you’re attached to it all
– the world and the wheel

as soon as you see this
the traffic forgets you

drink wine in a shop by the side of the road
think of walking alone in far mountains

a phoenix swoops low
remember that tune?

glance up and see a bright mist in the gate
that’s how you’ll go one day


305
whether to serve in the coming campaign

red flag into the green of the mountains
the ugly horse forced to a gallop

the road aspires, hooves clatter high
pikes scratch at the boards of heaven

to cherish this life
when one might lead another?

to serve in grave causes
or keep the empire’s calm in mind?

so much less
self obsessed than me

those characters with
the white masks are cunning

the heart swings under their
malign moods

to go or to stay? I dream
of night coming, drink half the day

and this is how I will never decide


306
climbing through far away clouds

‘in the clouds of a dynasty long lost
I climbed
picking through fragrant grasses

through clouds of five colours
all spirited

and I myself
by eye
cast above

peer down among pines
of the forest
to yearn’

there – and I hope that will serve for my turn
that you’ll raise a glass with me

then let us call each other scholars
drink till we forget who’s farewelled
who will stay


307
a pavilion in the mountains
where a poet might think of the sea

a pure cool breeze
through the river temple
the temple that lies far below

in the past
the poets’ pavilion was crowded

today I chant alone
just my miserable voice
thoughts too deep
blur the view

the wind through the grass
the voice of the timber

this tower was built
to mourn a love lost

but think of what’s been written here
the songs and the sagas, just the odes

to this place would make a fine volume
and one that would gather no dust

the brush must take the hand for granted
the heart not be daunted by what’s felt before

take wing instead, fly by the river
in the east past silent villages green

green the dark of the forest then dazzling
high in the mountains you first smell the salt

dream of the far far sea


308
leaving my wife’s house

dawn lotus wet with autumn’s dew
this is the morning we part

bed as empty as the way is long
there’s that new mandarin duck quilt

we were given… see how the breeze follows
them, see how they fly, over bumps

of the road and over rough water
into the west and the night, they’re with me

the one bright moon to light our dreams
the one bright moon in spring we’ll see


309
parting from Han Yu

it’s not from muddy waves I drink
but from this cup you’ve passed me

gaunt days I watch the further shore
between us waves in vain embrace

their wet foam blows all not amounting
nothing to forget there

four seasons now I’ve been away
through woods, by streams, in far meanders

wild berries keep the eyes well down
it’s only the well fed see up in tall timber

how straight the form of the starvelings below

310
in the mountains your home
where we consult the I Ching

how apt to speak here
of earth and of heaven

you won’t mind if I
call you a turtle

truths no one knows
yet you have taught me

the autumn moon makes light the night
a tune in the cool breeze blows

all that is here seems suddenly far
silence roars round, cities are dust

one hexagram known then each must be
as night melts into day all known

no carriage ever stops in this place
a horse merely neighs, goes on

the man in the wild grass is much praised
it’s in his honour the mountain here towers