After Visiting Thought-Essence Monastery,
I Return with White-Cloud Wang Following
Somewhere Behind
I left that high valley long before midday,
and twilight was fading when I got home.
Looking up the mountain road, I find only
oxen and sheep. My gaze grows reverent.
Woodcutters lose each other in darkness,
the evening chill silences a last cricket,
and I still haven't closed my bramble gate.
I keep lingering, expecting you out there.
At the Pavilion on Grand-View Mountain,
Sent to Chang Tzu-jung at Flourish Ridge
On the summit, sudden winds wild,
a cloud sails by like a startled bird.
Standing at the guardrail, I wonder:
is it old Chang coming back home?
Looking for T'eng's Old Recluse Home
Human endeavor's gone in a single morning,
and a recluse's three paths vanish in weeds.
First I hear you're resting at the Chang River,
now you're among T'ai Mountain wandering
dead. There's a pond here still tinged with ink,
but autumn's tumbled out of mountain clouds,
no hidden bones to find. You understood, hid
all beneath heaven inside all beneath heaven.
Visiting the Hermitage of Ch'an Monk Jung
In the mountaintop meditation hut — just a monk's robes.
And outside windows, no one. Birds at the stream take flight.
Yellow dusk stretching half-way down the mountain road,
I hear cascades in love with kingfisher-greens gone dark.
Gathering Firewood
Gathering firewood I enter mountain depths,
mountain depths rising creek beyond creek
choked with the timbers of bridges in ruins.
Vines tumble low, tangled over cragged paths,
and at dusk, scarce people grow scarcer still.
Mountain wind sweeping through simple robes,
my chant steady, I shoulder a light bundle,
watch smoke drift across open country home.
____________________
The Mountain Poems of
Meng Hao-jan
Translated by David Hinton
Archipelago Books, 2018
