Classic Poem

Ten years of my life, spent at the window or beneath the lamp,
practicing calligraphy day and night without a break!
Beside the " ink pond " I've used up an oceanful of water;
my worn-out brushes, piled high, would make a Mount Omei!
When the spirit moves me, I pour out
eight hundred gallons of wine,
get drunk, go wild, and let my brush do whatever it will.
Rabbit-hairs in hand, I let the tip loose,
and sweep my way through a million sheets of tinted phoenix paper.
One stroke across,
one stroke down:
a gold spear thrust into the ground, an awl stuck through the wall.
A brilliant rainbow arching across a blue autumn sky,
a waterfall rushing down the stones of a cinnabar cliff.
One dot large,
one dot small:
at midnight, a falling star, dazzling as it follows the moon;
flying through the air, a crossbow pellet, reaching toward the clouds!
A black pearl from the sea, glittering in a vast sky!
As lovely as: a beautiful woman, gathering flowers,
displaying her new makeup;
as bold as: a courageous soldier, grasping a spear,
on the battlefield!
As vibrant as: multicolored rocs and purple phoenixes
trying to outfly each other;
as swift as: autumn serpents and spring snakes
darting away. . . .
Forms like those of thick clouds in a million transformations,
postures like those of lightning bolts, flashing
across a clear sky!
Wild geese flying in formation against the autumn clouds;
dragons doing battle in the surging waters of a spring river!
Don't you recall why Wang Hsi-chih
was a man who loved to raise geese?
A true artist should have the same ambition:
beneath his brush, gods and spirits must appear!