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J.P. Seaton
Translations of
the Chinese Masters
Contents
Ten Poems by Ou-yang Hsiu
Ou-yang Hsui
Poems from "An Answering Music"
Anonymous, Drunken Villagers
Tu Fu, House Cricket and Song of the Bound Chickens
Yuan Mei, Dog Days, At "Be Careful Bank," Night Thought, Talking Art, When the Clouds Come
More Poems by Yan Mei and Poems by T'ao Ch'ien
Yuan Mei, End of the Year, Something to Ridicule
T'ao Ch'ien, Drinking Wine XVI, After the Ancients
Poems from "Traces: Fifty Generations of Zen Poetry "
Seng Yu, To everything there is a season
Ling Yi, Drinking Tea with Hermit Yuan at Greenmount Pool
Cheng Fu, Freedom's Good
Kuan Hsiu, Chung-nan Mountain Monk, Mean Alleyways, A Hundred Sorrows, Leaving It to You
Ching Yun, The Old Man of the Creek
Yuan Mei, So Be It
Ching An, Making a Fool of Myself
Poem from "World Views: New Writing About Nature"
Kuan Hsiu, Hymn on the Way
Poems from "Getting Past Words"
Ching An, To Show You All, on the First Morning of the Year, Facing Snow and Writing What My Heart Embraces, On the Spot Where Shih-chia Tz Sits in Meditation
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A Web Chapbook from
The Literary Review
J.P. Seaton
Translations of the Chinese Masters
KUAN HSUIChung-nan Mountain Monk
Are you famous for sharp dealing,
known far and wide?
He wouldn't have heard.
Dressed in straw and
gnawing stems,
he passes through
the dawn light.
Thoughts far off: the mountain
snow lies ten feet deep.
Once in a long while
some Mountain Man
comes knocking at his gate.
Mean Alleyways
Fallen leaves will fill a ditch
as well as flowers.
Here, a broken fence, the
well all overgrown, and one
cicada's meditative drone...
I know
to hope leads
but to hopelessness.
But how then to lead men
to turn their heads, to go
another
A Hundred Sorrows
Hundred sorrows under a single sail
Wind, and waves, poles of the eyes' view
Birds sunk, and the mountain with them, in the mist
All the color of the South, still cold next to the skin
Getting past this place, this autumn of the heart
You start to know what hard traveling means
Evening sun stands a moment on the sandbar
Leaving It to You
Self evident, truth mistakes no thing.
But my heart's a long way from there
and no thing's clear to me.
Yellow gold is almost all burned up
by my desire:
white hair grows beside the fire.
Bitter indecision, choose This, or maybe That:
even spirit speaks in riddles,and it makes it hard to harvest
the essence of a single day.
Catch the wind, while you tether the shadows.
Faith, or a man who'll stand by his word, is all
there is, there is no disputing.
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