I took a small path leading
up a hill valley, finding there
a temple, its gate covered
with moss, and in front of
the door but tracks of birds;
in the room of the old monk
no one was living, and I
staring through the window
saw but a hair duster hanging
on the wall, itself covered
with dust; emptily I sighed
thinking to go, but then
turning back several times,
seeing how the mist on
the hills was flying, and then
a light rain fell as if it
were flowers falling from
the sky, making a music of
its own; away in the distance
came the cry of a monkey, and
for me the cares of the world
slipped away, and I was filled
with the beauty around me.
- Li Po
Translated by: Rewi Allen
Simple yet profound - everything has its beauty we just need to know how to see it!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
Two of my fave Li Po quotes...
ReplyDelete"The birds have vanished into the sky,
and now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains."
and the beginning of his butterfly poem...
"Chuang Tzu in a dream became a butterfly,
And the butterfly became Chuang Tzu on waking.
Which was the real—the butterfly or the man?
Who can tell the end of the endless changes of things?"
I was telling some Chinese speakers these two quotes at some point and they said they'd never heard of Li Po, but when I said he was supposed to be really famous, they realized that they had but that they called him Li Bai, because when these poems were first translated into English, the system of transliteration of Chinese to English was different amd P has since become B... very confusing.