New Translations

HOUSE AT SOUTH HILL


In middle age, I found the Buddha Way.
In old age, I've settled here at South Hill.
Often on a whim I go walking alone:
small portions of nature known just to me.
I can trek up to the source of a stream
and sit down to see when the clouds will rise.
Sometimes I meet this old man in the woods
and we talk and laugh and forget to leave.
    --Wang Wei




WEI CITY SONG


A morning rain settles the light dust.
Willows by the inn green up again.
Have one more cup of wine here with me.
No old friends will be west of Yang Pass.
     --Wang Wei




FARM HOUSES BY WEI RIVER


Setting sun--slanting rays bright on the hills.
Sheep and cattle return to scruffy lanes.
In the field, old folks, leaning on their staffs,
watch for the herdboys by the fruitwood gate.
Pheasants call in rows of ripening wheat.
Silkworms sleep as mulberry leaves grow sparse.
Returning workers, still bearing their hoes,
stream together and linger long to chat.
Beginning to envy their end-of-day ease,
hopelessly then, I hum a song from the Odes.
     --Wang Wei

What is helpful to know here is that Wang Wei was a wealthy, highly educated  man, a painter and government official, as well as a poet.  He would have been steeped in the ancient classics, which included the Book of Odes.  And here he is observing the life of peasants, who presumably would not have been able to read that book.

The Last Stanza of My Every Poem

Such are the thoughts
to which have led
polymath heart
and punkin head.

Always Choose Less Evil

My friends, as the Democratic field narrows down, many of us have been disappointed to see our favorites drop out.  And whoever is the eventual nominee, more of us will be disappointed.  Some will think that the nominee has a repugnant political philosophy and will make a genuinely bad president. A choice between a good candidate and a bad candidate is easy. A choice between two good candidates in a general election may be difficult, but it is a rare and happy luxury.  A choice between two bad candidates is also very difficult, but paralyzingly distasteful. To cast a positive vote for a bad candidate offends moral sensibility. But it does not offend rational morality.  The lesser of two evils is--less evil. To discern which is the lesser evil, and then to choose it, may be the most consequential vote you have ever cast.  

It strikes me that these are Britishisms new or much more common in American English in the last decade or so:
     1. "spot on" in the sense of being exactly right
     2. "take a decision" rather than "make a decision"
     3. "go missing" in the sense of vanish or disappear
     4. "take a meeting" rather than "have a meeting"
I think I've noticed other expressions that I can't call to mind right now.  Not necessarily complaining. Anyone disagree or have other examples?