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Saturday, July 14, 2012



                                       

                                                      

Thursday, July 12, 2012

CHINESE POEMS BY VARIOUS AUTHORS: My Versions in English


Saying Goodbye on the Plain of Ancient Ruins

Grasses growing lush on the plain
year after year wither and flourish.
No wildfire can consume them all.
In winds of spring they grow again.
Their bright green reaches the far ruined wall.
Their fragrance flows over the ancient road.
Once again we say goodbye here,
a place lush with feelings of parting.
     --Bai Juyi




In the Hills, a Plum Tree Flowers in a Small Garden


Blossoms all have shaken down, and alone
it casts a warm beauty over the garden,
whose slender shadows lie on shallow ponds.
A faint fragrance drifts under a dun moon.
Snowbirds, landing, look again, to see
what dusty butterflies would faint to know.
Lucky me, making friends with whispered verse—
who needs golden goblets or rhythm sticks?
--Liu Bu



Meeting is hard and parting is harder.
The east wind slackens and flowers wither.
The spring silk worm spins silk till it dies.
The wax candle sheds tears till it's ash.
Morning mirror, fretting over disordered hair.
Midnight chanting, not feeling the cold.
Penglai, the faerie mountain, is somewhere near.
Bluebird, would you spy it out for me.
     --Li Shanglin

Alt:  The spring silk worm spins till it dies.
        The wax candle weeps till it's ash.



South Lake is the sum of three rivers.
Mount Lu is the master of all hills.
White sand cleans the river course.
Green pines color the crag heads.
When did the water begin to flow?
When did the mountain begin to be?
Human fate is ever changing.
These forms are alone enduring.
In all the near and far of the cosmos,
present becomes past; this order lasts.
    --Chang Fangsheng



    The Cicada

In the first place,
however refined you are
and able to live on wind and dew,
they will never satisfy your hunger.
So why keep up your bitter cry?
By the fifth hour
your voice is weak and hoarse
in the green, indifferent tree.
I'm just a minor functionary,
a drifting twig.
And the old fields at home
lie wasted and full of weeds.
So thank you for reminding me
that my family has a long history
of pure character.
--Li Shangyin



    Thoughts in the Cold

My guests have all gone,
the river rises to my doorstep,
cicadas cease whirring,
branches fill with dew:
a time when you fill my heart,
the time that passes while I stand
still beneath the Big Dipper,
more distant than spring.
Here beyond the edge
of your Nanjing sky
no messenger comes.
I am left with only
my dreams to divine
if you've found a new friend.
--Li Shangyin














使















滿









    The Spring Song of Lady Night

The spring woods
hold flowers of great beauty.
The spring birds
cause thoughts of great grief.
The spring breeze has also great feeling,
blowing open
my gauzy silk skirt.
--Anon., 300-600 C.E.



Lost, a whole army,
        before the gates of a city,
the year before last
        fighting the Yuezhi.
Lost, the torn, scattered tents,
        with no one to collect them.
There were only the tattered banners
        on horses straggling back.
Lost, any news of you,
        along the way from Tibet.
What offerings can I make
        if your fate is unknown?  
Lost, you and I to each other,
        whether or not you still live.
I offer these tears
        from far, far away.
          --Zhang Ji



This road here runs
     up to white clouds.
Spring is as long
     as the clear stream.
At times fallen petals
     float by,
flowing off
     on scented water.
My door idles
     on the mountain path.
My study's deep
     in willow shade;
my sleeves, sunlit
     on sunny days.
       --Liu Shenxu


 
    Autumn Song of Lady Night
Opening the window
to the autumn moon,
she puts out the candle,
slipping off her silk skirt.

And suppressing a smile
within the curtained bed,
she arches her body,
spreading orchid fragrance
    --Anon.

    Playing the Zheng for General Zhou

While playing the zheng
with millet-gold posts,
her fair hands moving
over the jade frame,
hoping that Zhou Yu
will turn and look,
every so often
she plucks the wrong note.
--Li Duan



She, who was in her rooms without sorrow,
turned out for spring, ascends the jade tower,
and, struck by a willow green in the field,
sighs for sending him off to seek titles.
--Wang Chiang-ling



Grasses grow rank around Red Bird Bridge.
Sun sets in the street of mansions.
Swallows from peeling painted eaves
swoop across the doorways of common folk.
--Liu Yuxi




DRINKING ALONE


Wind blows snow straight across the window.
Curl around the stove, open the wine,
and, as a fishing boat in the rain,
Sail asleep down the autumn river. 
      --Du Mu



On the Qinhuai River

With moonlight on sand and mist on cold water,
I tie up by a tavern on the river.
I hear a girl sing, with nothing of his grief,
the captive king's "Blossom of the Inner Court."
--Du Mu



Number 14 of the 19 Music Bureau Poems

Gone and daily receding,
coming and daily more near.
Looking straight out the city gate:
mounds and hills, mounds and hills.
Ancient graves are plowed into fields.
Pine and cypress destroyed for kindling.
Winds of sorrow out of white poplars.
Swish-swish, the sound of the axe men.
Dwelling on returning home--
no track, no trace of a road.
No way there from this longing.





Japanese Poems of the Heian Period and Before: My Versions in English


Almost showed you plum blossoms
that were a light fall of snow.
--Akahito




How few the moments
that my gaze has lit upon
the flowers of spring.

How many the months and days
that I have passed without fruit.
--Fujiwara no Okikase



The sea slips from the shore.
One white wave again stands fast.
A crane in the surf.
--The Emperor Uda



Destinations unknown,
two ships that left harbor
side by side, now diverge.
--Saigyo Hoshi



Before the dubious shrine
I stand dumbstruck and crying.
--Saigyo Hoshi



This world, I try not to see,
still dogs me like a shadow.
--Minamoto no Toshiyori



...to be in this world
the seagull sleeping alone
on the tossing sea...
--Tagaya Masahiro




Leaves fall on the roof,
blurring the silence of night
and the sound of rain.
--Minamoto no Yorizane



Rising and falling, waves
scour the moon in the sea,
effacing nothing.
--Kiyowara Fukayabu




Between the eternals,
the unmoving mountains
and incontinent seas,
we are flowers, quickest
among fleeting flowers.
--Anon.




Long into summer nights
when I think at last of bed
the dawn cuckoo sings
--Tsurayuki




Foam on the water
I am, that still wants to live
for a thousand years.
--Otomo no Yakamochi




To an empty land
she and I would go and live
alone together.
--Otomo no Yakamochi



Sad to meet in dreams:
My hand reaches out to you
and flounders awake.
--Otomo no Yakamochi




Should we never meet,
and entwine,  threads making cord,
now this way, now that,

upon what line shall I string
all the jewels of my life?
--Sakanoe Korenori


The rare tanka I've managed to render as a tanka.



Yes, she may not think of me
not ever forgetting her.
--Anon.



Plum trees bloom again.
Empty as a locust shell,
my own springless world.
--Anon.



Love without requite:
a prayer in the temple
behind a starving god.
--Lady Kasa



But by its own call
on the evergreen mountain
the deer knows the fall.
--Onakatomi Yoshinobu



Unmistakably
even here, far south in Tsu,
winter's come at last

to my cottage, hidden down
in a blanket of rushes.
--Minamoto no Shigeyuki



That this day too comes
to dusk:  more clear with each note
of the temple bell.
--Anon.



Unbearably cold,
sanderlings cried in the wind
across the river

the night I went to see her
whom I loved beyond bearing.
--Tsurayuki









Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Wang Wei: My Versions in English


Separation Sickness

Red beans of the longing tree grow 
     there in the south.   
Come the spring, the branches bush out 
     and fill with seeds.   
I hope, friend, that you will pick more 
     and more and more   
of what is the best thing for this illness of ours. 
     

alt:  of what is the simple for this illness of ours.





White stones stick up from Bramble Brook.
Red leaves sparse against a cold sky.
No rain now on the mountain path.
My clothes wet from the high green brush.




PASSING THE TEMPLE OF TEEMING FRAGRANCE
The Temple of Teeming Fragrance
measureless miles in summit clouds.
Ancient forest, a pathless way.
Deep mountains, directionless bell.
Spring water over jagged rocks.
Yellow sun on cool green pines.
Twilight, winding pool.  Quiet sitting
uncoils the poison dragon of the heart.
    

Monks make incense at the Temple of Teeming Fragrance.



DEER FENCE
Empty Mountain.
Seeing no one.
Hearing someone's
echoing voice.
The late day sun
enters again
the deep forest,
shining once more
on the green moss.






In my old age, I want only peace.
The ten thousand things are not my concern.
I've no plan for the rest of my life
but to come back to this, my ancient woods.
Piney wind blows my girdle open.
Mountain moon lights upon the lute I play.
So where's the warp and weft of the world?
Fishermen's songs come far up the inlet.







Wang Wei was a painter as well.                                                                



















Du Fu: My Versions in English

SPRING PROSPECT

The nation in ruins,
mountains and rivers remain.

The city in spring's
deep in grass and trees.

My tears at the passing days
fall as dew from the flowers.

Embittered by separation,
I startle at birdsong.

Beacon fires have blazed
for all these three months.

For a letter from home
I'd give ten thousand in gold.

I've pulled so at my white hair
my hatpin hardly holds.
--Du Fu


Thanks to Joel Lipman, the poet laureate of Lucas County, for the suggestion to separate the couplets. Helps to break up the clunkiness, in English, of always-endstopped lines.



Another Version:


The nation in ruin,
mountains and rivers remain.
The city in spring,
deep in grass and trees.

Lost in wretched times,
weeping over flowers.
Sunk in loneliness,
startling at birdsong.

Beacon fires,
burning for three months.
Family letters,
worth thousands in gold.

Pulling so at my white hair
that my hatpin barely holds.


春望

国破山河在
城春草木深
感时花溅泪
恨别鸟惊心
烽火连三月
家书抵万金
白头搔更短
浑欲不胜簪


chūn wàng

guó pò shān hé zài
chéng chūn cǎo mù shēn
gǎn shí huā jiàn lèi
hèn bié niǎo jīng xīn
fēng huǒ lián sān yuè
jiā shū dǐ wàn jīn
bái tóu sāo gèng duǎn
hún yù bù shēng zān








Thoughts of the Night Traveller

Slender grass in the shore breeze.
Tall mast on a lonely boat.
Stars sink over spreading fields.
The moon rides on the river.
Too old and sick for office--
and will scribblings make my name?
Drifting, drifting, what am I?
One gull between earth and sky.




FACING SNOW


Battle cries, many new ghosts.
Old, alone--worry and grief.
Ragged clouds are low at dusk.
Snow swirls around and around.
Ladle and cup--green wine gone.
Dying embers--stove still red.
I sit, no news from anywhere,
my books blank with my sorrow.
     --my tr.



对雪

战哭多新鬼
愁吟独老翁
乱云低薄暮
急雪舞回风
瓢弃尊无绿
炉存火似红
数州消息断
愁坐正书空





MOONLIT NIGHT


Just now, alone in our room,
you gaze at the Fuzhou moon.
Our children--I ache for them
from far away--they don't see
why you brood upon Changon.
Fragrant fog scents your gathered hair.
Lustrous moon chills your slender arms.
When, among the gauzy curtains,
will we lean together again,
these tears dried on our faces,
their traces limned in moonlight?




On the River I Saw the Water Surging like the Ocean:  A Sketchy Account


I have always been a little off,
      so driven by love of well-made verse,
pursuing that word of startling rightness,
      I'd sooner die than rest.
In my reckless old age,
      my words and I overwhelm each other.
So you needn't fear, birds and flowers,
     for the secrets of your spring.
Just now, I've put in a pier
      to dangle a fishing line from.
Before, I was angling from an anchored raft
      in place of a boat.
Who could I get with the mind of a master
      like Tao or Xie
to help out with my writing
      and wander the nearby world with me?
--Du Fu, my tr.




Birds are whiter on the blue river.
Flowers flame up on the green mountain.
Spring, I see, has come and gone again.
What day--what year--will I return home?
--my tr.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

HITOMARU: My Versions in English


Not combing my morning hair,
so lately pillowed in his hand.



Dim in the mist of morning
off the shore of Akashi:
the island hiding the boat
upon which sail all my thoughts.



Walking past my door
unglancing: how she tells me
"so then, die of love."

Ono no Komachi: My Versions in English


Imagining My Death and Cremation

Sad to end as just
a green haze drifting pale
over distant fields.




Falling, the long rain,
the color from the flower,
the eye through the world.




Should the stream whisper "come,"
like a severed reed,
I would float away,
adrift as my heart.



Moonlight pouring through the trees
fills me up with autumn.