Recalling the Old Days at Mianchi

To what can we liken human life?
Perhaps to a wild swan's footprints on mud or snow;
By chance its claws imprint the mud
Before it flies off at random, east or west.
The old monk is dead and a new pagoda built;
The old wall has crumbled, the poem we wrote on it gone.
Do you still remember this rugged mountain path,
The long way, our exhaustion and how the lame donkey brayed?

--Su Dongpo
translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang