The palm at the end of the mind, beyond the last thought, rises in the bronze distance. A gold feathered bird sings in the palm, without human meaning, without human feeling, a foreign song. You know then that it is not the reason that makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine. The palm stands on the edge of space. The wind moves slowly in the branches. The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Steady Rain, Drinking Alone

Life soon returns to nothing. The ancients
all said it circles away like this. And if

Sung and Ch'iao ever lived in this world
without dying, where are they now? Still,

my old neighbor swears his wine makes you
immortal, so I try a little. Soon, those

hundred feelings grow distant. Another cup,
and suddenly I've forgotten heaven. O,

how could heaven be anywhere but here?
Stay true to the actual, yielding to all things,

and in a moment, unearthly cloud-cranes
carrying immortals beyond all eight horizons

return. Since I first embraced solitude,
I've struggles through forty years. And yet,

in this body long since lost to change,
my thoughts remain, quite silent after all.


--T'ao Ch'ien (365-427 A.D)
translated by David Hinton
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