Reply to Wang Wei

The dream of reclusive life, a strict, essential solitude,
Is a younger hermit's dream.
Tuesday, five days till winter, a cold, steady rain.
White hair, white heart. The time's upon us and no exit
East of the lotus leaves.
No exit, you said, and a cold, steady rain.

Indeed.
All those walks by the river, all those goodbyes.
Willows shrink back to brown across Locust Avenue,
The mountains are frost and blue
and fellow travellers.
Give you peace, you said, freedom from ten thousand matters.
And asked again, does fame come only to the ancients?

At the foot of the southern mountains, white clouds pass without end,
You wrote one time in a verse.
They still do, and still without end.
That's it. Just wanted to let you know it hasn't changed—no out, no end,
And fame comes only to the ancients, and justly so,
Rain turning slowly to snow now then back into rain.

Everywhere everywhere, you wrote, something is falling,
The evening mist has no resting place.
What time we waste, wasting time.
Still, I sit still,
The mind swept clean in its secret shade,
Though no monk from any hill will ever come to call.

--Charles Wright