| Subcribe via RSS
translated by David Hinton
Listening to a Monk’s Ch’in in Depths
Carrying a ch’in cased in green silk, a monk
descended from Eyebrow Mountain in the west.
When he plays, even in a few first notes,
I hear the pines of ten thousand valleys,
and streams rinse my wanderer’s heart clean.
Echoes linger among temple frost-fall bells,
night coming unnoticed in emerald mountains,
autumn clouds banked up, gone dark and deep.
Li Po (701-762)
Tags: David Hintonby Pireeni Sundaralingam with accompaniment by Colm O’Riain
LETTERS FROM EXILE
These are the letters I leave behind me,
dull lines written for the censor’s eye.
There are no stories here, only headlines,
statements of fact, shielding the truth.
But how can I write my life without politics
when each word placed is part of an equation?
Talk of my income will be translated
into an exact amount for blackmail or ransom;
Talk of our culture will be interpreted
as a covert call to arms.
Tags: Colm O'Riain, Pireeni Sundaralingam