Li Po
I Looked All over the Mountain for the Monk, but Not Finfing Him. I Wrote This
Path of stones goes up beside Cinnabar Creek,
pines like a gate, shut, and moss and lichen in the shade,
with bird tracks on the closed-in stairs.
No one there to open the meditation hall,
so I peek in the window and see a white prayer
whisk
hanging on the wall, growing the "dust of the
world.
"
it draws a vain sigh from me.
I want to be gone, yet I want to stayround and
round....
Fragrant clouds, everywhere, rising from the mountain,
and a rain of flowers from the sky.
There's already an emptiness full of music and
goodness.
How much the more so when I hear
the pure wail of the gibbons,
It's clear I should cut free of the business of being in the world.
In this place, in this way? Can I know?

transl. by J.P. Seaton