Tuesday, April 21, 2020

MIKE O'CONNOR (TRANSLATOR) ~







Overnight At A Buddhist 
Mountain Temple





Massed peaks pierce

the cold-colored sky;

a view the zazen hall

faces.



Shooting stars pass

into sparse-branched trees;

the moon one way,

clouds another.



Few people come

to this mountaintop;

cranes do not flock

in the tall pines.



One Buddhist priest,

eighty years old,

has never heard

of the world affairs.





______________________
Chia Tao (779-843)
Colors of Daybreak and Dusk
Tangram
1995