After yesterday’s holiday excesses, some Classical Chinese poetry seems like just what the doctor ordered. Granted, these verses may not cure your hangover, but a dose of Chan (Zen) sensibility is about as good a counterpoint to the unfolding insanity of Black Friday as anything else I can think of. First, here’s an untitled poem by Shiwu (石屋), a Yuan-dynasty poet and hermit.
| Somebody asks me when I first came to live here – I sit in meditation until the answer comes: the peachtree my hands planted outside my door has come to blossom some twenty springs. |
有人問我何年住 坐久纔方省得來 門外碧桃親手種 春光二十度花開 |
Here’s another one, by Wang Wei (王維), hands down my favorite poet in the canon. It’s an example of the classic eight-line, five-character-per-line lushi (律詩) form and is, I think, the most beautiful piece to appear in the seminal Three Hundred Tang Poems (唐詩三百首) collection. The title, “Passing Xiangji Temple” (過香積寺) refers to a Pure Land sanctuary some fifteen miles from old Chang’an, and the motif of passing-by, of peripheral encounter, suggestively recurs and builds throughout the piece. In fact, it’s unclear from the very first line if Wang Wei actually physically gets to the temple – whether he ‘knew’ or ever got to ‘know’ it remains one of those undecidable things that makes Classical Chinese such evergreen fun to render into English.
| I did not know Xiangji Temple. I moved beneath many li of low clouds old trees and deer runs from deep in the mountain, somewhere, the sound of a bell the muffled call of a swallow from beyond the rocks the sun’s cold white on the blue pines. In the evening, at the bend of a mountain stream, I sit in meditation and tame the poison dragons of mind. |
不知香積寺 數里入雲峰 古木無人徑 深山何處鐘 泉聲咽危石 日色冷青松 薄暮空潭曲 安禪制毒龍 |
In addition to my own halting versions, you can find these poems and many more like them in various places; I recommend this volume and this one, both put into English by Bill Porter (“Red Pine”), who in addition to being a superlative translator is also just a lovely person and great poet in his own right.
Carte Blanchfield 