Su Tung P'o (Su Shih; Zizhan)
The Turning Year
Nightfall. Clouds scatter and vanish.
The sky is pure and cold.
Silently the River of Heaven turns in the Jade Vault.
If tonight I do not enjpy life to the full,
Next month, next year, who knows where I will be?

(from "One Hundred Poems from the Chinese)

transl. by Kenneth Rexroth