nearly full moon shining through clouds

by tendo zenji

Getting up past midnight and gazing across
the West Garden, I encounter the Rising Moon
-Liu Tsung-yüan

Waking to the sound of heavy dew falling,
I open the door, gaze past the west garden

to a cold moon rising over eastern ridges,
scattered bamboo, roots gone clear, clear.

Distance clarifies a waterfall into silence.
Now and then, a mountain bird calls out.

I lean on a column, stay till dawn in these
isolate depths of quiet: no words, no words.
 
 
Translated by David Hinton
from Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China, p. 151