Unsprung

[rejectomorph]

I'd like to walk tonight among the shadows of the woods, the moonlight streaking the ground where my footsteps break the dry twigs of winter. So mild is the breeze by which the pines sing, I'd go without a jacket and be barely chilled. The house is stuffy despite the windows having been open this afternoon, but the vast night is all freshness, and glimmering shapes fill it. That I am tethered here leaves me restless. No concentration is possible while the fluttering curtains remind me how far I cannot go.




Sunday Verse

Thoughts In Exile

by Su Tung-P'o


I lift my head and watch
The phoenix and the snowy swan
Cross the heavens in their migrations.
Wealth, office, position,
After all these years, mean nothing to me.
The foundered horse no longer
Hopes to travel a thousand miles.
In exile, in autumn,
I grow lazy and indifferent.
In history men have
Always been treated like this.
I am forbidden to visit the Western Lake.
There is no place else I want to go.
The wise man, no matter how he is treated,
Knows that Heaven does nothing without reason.
But nobody can stop me
From writing poems about the
Mountains and rivers of Wu.

–translated by Kenneth Rexroth

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

oh, the rexroth translations from the chinese! i bought two books of them when i was in my 20s. they're still beautiful to me.

[rejectomorph]

His translations from the Japanese are enjoyable, too.

I think I might have posted this one before, a couple of years ago. It suited my mood last night, though.