Poems from the Chinese
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 Hinton