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| Home | Chinese Poetry | Chinese Philosophy | Poetry | ||||||||||||||
| Meng Chiao | |||||||||||||||||
| The Late Poems of Meng Chiao | |||||||||||||||||
| Laments of the Gorges 3 Triple Gorge one thread of heaven over ten thousand cascading thongs of water, slivers of sun and moon sheering away above, and wild swells walled-in below, splintered spirits glisten, a few glints frozen how many hundred years in dark gorges midday light never finds, gorges hungry froth fills with peril. Rotting coffins locked into tree roots, isolate bones twist and sway, dangling free, and grieving frost roosts in branches, keeping lament's dark, distant harmony fresh. Exile, tattered heart all scattered away, you'll simmer in seething flame here, your life like fine-spun thread, its road a trace of string traveled away. Offer tears to mourn the water-ghosts, and water-ghosts take them, glimmering. 9 Water swords and spears raging in gorges, boats drift across heaving thunder. Here in the hands of these serpents and snakes, you face everyday frenzies of wind and rain, and how many fleeing exiles travel these gorges, gorges rank inhabitants people? You won't find a heart beneath this sheen, this flood that's stored away aftermath forever. Arid froth raising boundless mist, froth all ablaze and snarling, snarling— what of that thirst for wisdom when you're suddenly here, dead center in these waters. |
Autumn Thoughts 1 Lonely bones can't sleep nights. Singing insects keep calling them, calling them. And the old have no tears. When they sob, autumn weeps dewdrops. Strength failing all at once, as if cut loose, and ravages everywhere, like weaving unraveled, I touch thread-ends. No new feelings. Memories crowding thickening sorrow, how could I bear southbound sails, how wander rivers and mountains of the past? 5 Bamboo ticking in wind speaks. In dark isolate rooms, I listen. Demons and gods fill my frail ears, so blurred and faint I can't tell them apart. Year-end leaves, dry rain falling, scatter. Autumn clothes thin cloud, my sick bones slice through things clean. Though my bitter chant still makes a poem, I'm withering autumn ruin, strength following twilight away. Trailed out, this fluttering thread of life: no use saying it's tethered to the very source of earth's life-bringing change. |
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| DAVID HINTON
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