Two Poems by Chang Jian

A Buddhist Retreat Behind Broken Mountain Temple

Clear, quiet dawn enters the old temple.
Early sun brightens the forest heights.
Crooked path comes to a secluded space.
A monk's cottage deep in flowers and trees.
Light through the mountains plays over bird flight.
A deep pool mirrors both sky and heart.
Ten thousand sounds of nature are suffused
with the one tone of the temple bell.
     --my tr.

Alt:  Ten thousand sounds of nature are resolved
         in the one tone of the temple bell.


Ancient Spirit

Old men there on the River Han,
stiff corpses at the river's mouth,
their white hair wet with yellow mud.
Black ravens come for what remains.
Their cunning we may now forget.
Their selves--or souls--have come to what?
Wind blows, the fishing line snaps,
darting fish are hard to catch.
Islands are bright with white water.
Reeds crowding onto the steep bank
retain a trace of the small boat
now tied at the long river's edge.
Towering pines, their dried-up branches
hold up ropey hanging vines.
Must we depend on things like this?
Living and dead--can they know each other?
Survey the world today and see
everywhere all are like you.
A general dies in a great siege.
The Han soldiers still press forward,
a hundred horses on one bit,
ten thousand wheels on one axle.
Are you mainly name or mainly flesh?
Gentlemen, think well on this.
     --my tr.

Alt:  hold up raggedy green ropes.