DAVID HINTON Chinese Poetry
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Wang Wei
The Selected Poems of Wang Wei
Wheel-Rim River

1 Elder-Cliff Cove

At the mouth of Elder-Cliff, a rebuilt house
among old trees, broken remnants of willow.

Those to come: who will they be, their grief
over someone's long-ago life here empty.




5 Deer Park

No one seen. Among empty mountains,
hints of driftng voice, faint, no more.

Entering these deep woods, late sunlight
flares on green moss again, and rises.




6 Magnolia Park

Autumn mountains gathering last light,
one bird follows another in flight away.

Shifting kingfisher-greens flash radiant
scatters. Evening mists: nowhere they are.

13 Golden-Rain Rapids

Wind buffets and blows autumn rain.
Water cascading thin across rocks,

waves lash at each other. An egret
startles up, white, then settles back.




15 White-Rock Shallows

White-Rock Shallows open and clear
green reeds past prime for harvest:

families come down east and west,
rinse thin silk radiant in moonlight.




18 Magnolia Slope

Lotus blossoms adrift out across treetops
flaunt crimson calyces among mountains.

At home beside this stream, quiet, no one
here. Scattered. Scattered open and falling.
DAVID HINTON
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