David Hinton

Crossing Open-Anew Lake

 

 

A fisherman’s taking his boat deep across the lake.

My old eyes trace his path all the way, his precise

 

wavering in and out of view. Then it gets strange:

suddenly he’s a lone goose balanced on bent reed.

 

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Cooking Breakfast at Bear-Den Village

 

 

It’s morning. I’m hungry, but gaze at cook-smoke arcing

along a stream and off into mountains. Here’s sight entire

 

where, hoarding dew in a silk purse, unconcerned with us,

a spider steals bits of smoke, dangles them atop the fence.

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Radiance All-Gaze Monastery

 

 

Forest of slant light ablaze deep in the eye,

chill of setting moon drifting wide on wind,

 

I settle into rivers and mountains. Together,

we’re a single distance of autumn radiance.

 

 

 

 

 

At Plenitude Cliffs

 

 

Looking up I see silvered-azure cliffs all depth towering

above this Ch’an temple’s exquisite valley. At the empty

 

center of things, water eighty thousand feet from a peak

cascades, and even one single drop startles mind awake.

 

 

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A Cold Fly

 

 

Chance sight on windowsill: the fly sits warming its back,

rubbing its front legs together, savoring morning sunlight.

 

Sun nudges shadow closer. But fly knows what’s coming,

and suddenly it’s gone: buzz heading for another window.

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Cliffs Along the Road Flaunt an Inky and Ancient Winter-Plum Where One Magpie’s Settled on a Branch for the Night—Head Pulled In, Eyes Half Closed

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Skewed branch glutted with wind and snow,

sparse blossoms glazed jade-pure with ice:

 

a magpie endures that cold clarity, perfectly

alone and dear friends with origin-dark quiet.