Li Po
Looking in the Mirror and Writing What My Heart Finds There
Get the Tao and it's permanent Paradise,
Lose it, and what's permanent is change,
or withering, or old age, if you need it clearer....
So I laugh at the man in the mirror,
with that hair like dead weeds under frost,
and get back a sigh from that big all-knowing
eye.
And from that door my heart knocked on, I ask
me, how did I get so like a withered tree?
T'ao Ch'ien and Me, peaches and plums,
sweet juicy fruits once: Old man,
let's hope when our strings run out
we'll at least get buried properly,
on the warm side of your South Mountain,
with someone singing that song from the Poetry
Classic , about how were all immortal.

transl. by J.P. Seaton