Waves Sifting Sand

1.

One anchorage of sand appears as another dissolves away,
and another fold of wave ends as another rises. Wave and sand

mingling together day after day, sifting through each other
without cease: they level up mountains and seas in no time.

2.

White waves swell though wide open seas, boundless and beyond,
and level sand stretch into the four directions all endless depths:

evening they dissolve and morning reappear, sifting ever away,
their seasons transforming eastern seas into a field of mulberries.

3.

Ten thousand miles across a lake where the grass never fades,
a lone traveler, you find yourself in rain among yellow plums,

gazing grief-stricken toward an anchorage of sand. Dark waves
wind keeps churned up: the sound of them slapping at the boat.

4.

A day will no doubt come when the dust flies at the bottom of the seas,
and how the mountaintops can avoid the transformation to gravel?

Young lovers may part, a man leaving, setting out on some boat,
but who could say they'll never come together again one day?


--Po Chu-i
(772-846)
translated by David Hinton