Short Poems

Graceful Acacia! slender, brittle,
I think I know the like of thee;
But thou art tall and she is little . . .
What God shall call her his own tree?
Some God must be the last to change her;
From him alone she will not flee;
O may he fix to earth the ranger,
And may he lend her shade to me!

Art thou afraid the adorer's prayer
Be overheard? that fear resign.
He waves the incense with such care
It leaves no stain upon the shrine.

A ROUND the child bend all the three
Sweet Graces — Faith, Hope, Charity.
Around the man bend other faces —
Pride, Envy, Malice, are his Graces.

From the day you retired to this home of three paths
you have led your life in the Land of Intoxication.
You say the roads of the world are dangerous:
they can't compare with staying at home!
Shaken by the wind, the pines give a cold sound.
Steamed by the rain, the flowers waft fragrance.
So why are you not completely at peace?
Because you still work hard at your poems.

The family tombs
are ten thousand miles away;
on official business
I've traveled five years now.
What man is there
who has no mom and dad?
I cover the painting
and weep tears for a while.

Don't sing The Song of Everlasting Sorrow
written in days gone by:
here too, in the world of mortals,
Milky Ways keep lovers apart.
In Shih-hao Village the man and wife
when they said goodbye
wept more tears than ever were wept
in the Palace of Long Life.

Distant roads in the aftermath of war;
cold journey, worse as illness lingers.
Stuffed with cotton — threads sewn by my wife;
" medicine enclosed " — letters from my friends.
Evening crossing, horse at river ford;
morning ice, cart at roadside inn.
Withered, desolate, trees of my home garden:
I've so betrayed the mountain-facing hut.

Creak, creak, loom and shuttle, hidden beyond the trees;
I wake from dream, and remember
journeys on rivers and lakes.
Covering the ground, moonlight, cool,
almost like water —
the sounds become the creaking of oars
rowing me to Yangchou.

Craggy rocks, crouching like elephants;
withered pine bark, mottled like fish-scales.
From which spot did the Crane Immortal take off?
Is the Dragon Mother possessed of real magic power?
The caves here have talking animals;
on the cliffs live people who never say a word.
The palace of Wu fell apart long ago —
where can the ruins be found?

Close up they're seen in fine detail,
far back they disappear;
sky and water, vast and open, riverside or lake.
How fortunate they were not noticed
by the hunter's eye;
instead they're captured in their leisure
by this painted scene.