Colder

[rejectomorph]

The night slips away like the waxing moon that was quickly swallowed by deepening overcast. There could be rain today, and there will surely be chill. If there is no rain, the valley will most likely vanish below fog, leaving the ridge jutting into a gray sea. I heard geese overhead a while ago. They are returning just in time, it seems. Winter swiftly flies at their backs.



Sunday Verse

On Being Sixty

by Po Chu-i


Between thirty and forty, one is distracted by the Five Lusts;
Between seventy and eighty, one is prey to a hundred diseases.
But from fifty to sixty one is free from all ills;
Calm and still-- the heart enjoys rest.
I have put behind me Love and Greed; I have done with Profit and Fame;
I am still short of illness and decay and far from decrepit age.
Strength of limb I still possess to seek rivers and hills;
Still my heart has spirit enough to listen to flutes and strings.
At leisure I open new wine and taste several cups;
Drunken I recall old poems and sing an entire volume.
Meng-te has asked for a poem and herewith I exhort him
Not to complain of three-score, "the time of obedient ears".


-translated by Arthur Waley