Sunday Poesy
by layman k
I lay my harp on the curved table,
Sitting there idly, filled only with emotions.
Why should I trouble to play?
A breeze will come and sweep the strings.
-Po Chi
drafty mountain hut
always at home, forever on the way
Tag: sunday poesy
May 19, 2013
May 5, 2013
sunday poesy
by layman k
• 1
Midnight, can’t sleep,
so I sit up, to try my lute.
Curtains catch moonlight
the pure breeze flutters my sleeves.
A lone swan cries: in wilderness,
and flies, crying, to the north woods,
turning, and turning, and gyring there,
sees what?
Loneliness; to be alone so
wounds heart and mind.
-Juan Chi
(from The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry translated and edited by J.P Seaton)
April 28, 2013
sunday poesy
by layman k
Cold Mountain Poems
– Han Shan
VII
I sit beneath the cliff, quiet and alone.
Round moon in the middle of the sky’s a bird ablaze:
all things are seen mere shadows in its brilliance,
that single wheel of perfect light …
Alone, its spirit naturally comes clear.
Swallowed in emptiness in this cave of darkest mystery,
because of the finger pointing, I saw the moon.
That moon became the pivot of my my heart.
(from Cold Mountain Poems
April 21, 2013
sunday poesy
by layman k
Mountain Living: Twenty Poems
by Han-shan Te-ch’ing
I
Down beneath the pines,
a few thatched huts.
Before my eyes,
everywhere blue mountains,
and where the sun and moon
restless rise and fall,
this old white cloud
idly comes and goes.
(translated by James Cryer in The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry edited by J.P Seaton)
April 7, 2013
sunday poesy
by layman k
from Four Verses
by Chang Yang-hao
Before forty I quit my job
and came to tread the way of saints and sages.
If I come out, it’s just because
I love the hills and streams.
My ears are clean…
My vision’s ample…
When you ponder it,
this is true happiness
The golden girdle girds calamity.
Purple robe robes pain.
Are they better than my briar cane and cap of straw?
(from The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry translated by J.P Seaton)
March 31, 2013
Sunday Poesy
by layman k
Spring Day III
by Yuan Mei
A hermit’s gate is made of the stuff of brooms,
but sweep as it may, the clouds won’t stay away.
So up through the clouds, for sun I came,
with wine, to this high tower.
At evening, the sun declined
to come one down the mountain with me.
“Tomorrow,” I asked,
“you coming, or not?”
(from The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry translated by J.P Seaton)
March 24, 2013
Sunday Poesy
by layman k
Speaking my Mind III
by Yuan Mei
To learn to be without desire
you must desire that.
Better to do as you please:
sing idleness.
Floating clouds, and water running…
where’s their source?
In all the vastness of the sea and sky,
You’ll never find it.
(from The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry
March 10, 2013
Sunday Poesy
by layman k
Dark Stream/An Album Leaf
-Hsu Wei
Gold splashed
on a little fan,
the half full
moon.
In light charcoal
a dark stream
sketched,
a stream rushing
without sound,
just like
a lute
with the strings
unbound.
March 3, 2013
Sunday Poesy
by layman k
from Four Verses
by Chang Yang-hao
I was young
and now somehow I’m old.
All of my life seems
like yesterday morning.
The glare and the shade,
the water running,
and neither is clement.
It’s better to get drunk, to sleep.
Let the sun and the moon handle rising and falling
I’ll pretend I know nothing.
(from The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry
drafty mountain hut 