AFTER A WEEK READING BURTON WATSON'S
TRANSLATIONS OF SU TUNG-P'O
Who'll sit and wait
with me
The night air chill
What does Heaven do
anyway
Careful--don't get too
wrapped up in dreams of high office
Wanderings of a
lifetime--what do they resemble
The old monk is dead
now
Do you recall that day
Peering
closer...trying to write the words on my stomach
Missing a word or two,
getting eight or nine
I try to date the
stones
What will the creator
make out of me next
Each time I look at
him I'm lost
The lamp's burned
out/look at the slanting dipper
The priest grabs their
money heads for...
When your poem came it
brought back those times again
We grow old but who
goes on grumbling about the gods
My home is where the
river first bubbles from a fountain
Mountain monks pressed
me to stay
Write a poem quick
before it gets away
Don't ask who is
foolish or wise
This hermit has a
special way with hills
The flower is the
embarrassed one, topping an old man's head
I only hear a bell
beyond the mist
Lately I've developed
a taste for the quiet life
Wise men fill the
court, why do things get worse
Is it Shao's music
make me forget how things should taste
Stilling the mind, no
medicine is better than this
I hear no voices but
the scuff of shoes
Strike your own
evening drum morning bell
Doesn't Lord Heaven
see this old farmer weeping
At Twilight Fine Rain
Was Still Falling
Cold thoughts--where
can I talk them out
The children are silly
but you're much worse
What you get's not
worth the trouble
Throat parched, thinking
only of tea
I wanted to write a
verse to your last year's song
The governor's gone
mad
An hour of delight
among these cliffs
Make sure the mind
never clings
Come to think of it,
why rush to town
The bell on the pagoda
top talks to itself
I may be dropping by
at odd hours
Years now I've stolen
posts I never should have had
Funny--I never could
keep my mouth shut
But here's a stranger,
alone, heaven against him
What's ten years when
a thousand pass like hail on the wind
Leaning on my stick I
listen to river sounds
I long for my loved
one in a corner of the sky
I get another cool day
in this floating life
The hundred rivers day
and night flow on
I like the ringing
sound my stick makes when it strikes
10,000 things
100 rivers
84,000 verses
300 tiers of green
hills
800 letters
1000 folded hills
7,000 miles, 18 rapids
10,000 pores
I myself am in the
mountain
What spot did you
observe it from to get this air of unconcern
An exile is like a
monk: where is home
Who works these
wonders
He himself became
bamboo
Little boat with a
single oar
Poetry is certainly
lost on him
Roads go there, they're
not for me
I envy crows that know
the way back home
I move my bed dodging
leaks on the roof
No time to give even
my head a good scratching
Living water needs
living fire to boil
Black Muzzle, south
sea dog
Such is the light of my mind
What form gratitude, becoming
grateful,
lifted text carried into the
garden
with my spade, raising dull rocks
buried in clay from time before beings
like ours wrote poems
Does the text become itself
becoming something else, Burton
Watson,
the heavy clay remains heavy clay
the stones a mound, cairns
towards somewhere,
the lifting, a liberation, after
the long wait,
endless longing and silences
Jim Bodeen
28 August--5 September 2018
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