Classic Poem

I

In what place is one most free of bonds?
At Hua-yang, eighth of the Heavens.
The wind in the pines carries dew in all its clarity;
The moon, through the bearded lichen, is cleansed of mist.
Suddenly startled—a crane at the gemmy altar;
Humming in season—cicadas on the jeweled tree.
I long to post my thoughts from a thousand tricents:
“My only love is the spring at Phoenix Gate.”

II

The torrent-iris on the stone puts out purple floss;
The dark blue hills clumped in seclusion—the waters swollen full.
Sweetflag flowers are fixed there, where no men are;
On such a day in spring one must meet only a “feathered visitor.”

III

Searching alone on the sand-bar with its orchids, diverted by dilatory beams of light;
Leaning at ease on the window with its pines, gazing off at blue-misted hills;
Imagining afar the spring mountains in the pale glow of the luminous moon,
And the clear lithophones at a jadestone altar—where you return from “Pacing the Void.”