The Selected Poems of Li Po

by Li Bai

  behind the house, and us lazily gathering

  what we’ve grown. It’s no small thing.

  AT FANG-CH’ENG MONASTERY, DISCUSSING CH’AN WITH YÜAN TAN-CH’IU

  Alone, in the vast midst of boundless

  dream, we begin to sense something:

  wind and fire stir, come whorling

  life into earth and water, giving us

  this shape. Erasing dark confusion,

  we penetrate to the essential points,

  reach Nirvana-illumination, seeing

  this body clearly, without any fears,

  and waking beyond past and future,

  we soon know the Buddha-mystery.

  What luck to find a Ch’an recluse

  offering emerald wine. We seem lost

  together here— no different than

  mountains and clouds. A clear wind

  opens pure emptiness, bright moon

  gazing on laughter and easy talk,

  blue-lotus roofs. Timeless longing

  breaks free in a wandering glance.

  WRITTEN WHILE WANDERING THE WHITE RIVER IN NAN-YANG, AFTER CLIMBING ONTO THE ROCKS

  Morning up near White River origins,

  and suddenly that human world’s gone:

  islands all ends-of-the-earth beauty,

  river and sky a vast vacant clarity.

  Ocean clouds leave the eye’s farewell,

  and the mind idle, river fish wander.

  Chanting, I linger out a setting sun,

  then return moonlit to a farmland hut.

  WANDERING CH’ING-LING STREAM IN NAN-YANG

  I hoard the sky a setting sun leaves

  and love this cold stream’s clarity:

  western light follows water away,

  rippled current a wanderer’s heart.

  I sing, watch cloud and moon, empty

  song soon long wind through pine.

  SONG OF THE MERCHANT

  On heaven’s wind, a sea traveler

  wanders by boat through distances.

  It’s like a bird among the clouds:

  once gone, gone without a trace.

  FRONTIER-MOUNTAIN MOON

  Over Heaven Mountain, the bright moon

  rises through a boundless sea of cloud.

  A hundred thousand miles long, steady

  wind scouring Jasper-Gate Pass howls.

  Our armies moving down White-Ascent Road,

  Mongols probing along Sky-Blue Seas—

  soldiers never return from those forced

  marches ending on battlefields. Countless

  guards look out across moonlit borderlands,

  thinking of home, their faces all grief.

  And somewhere, high in a tower tonight,

  a restless woman cries out in half-sleep.

  A SUMMER DAY IN THE MOUNTAINS

  Flourishing a white-feather fan

  lazily, I go naked in green forests.

  Soon, I’ve hung my cap on a cliff,

  set my hair loose among pine winds.

  LISTENING TO LU TZU-HSÜN PLAY THE CH’IN ON A MOONLIT NIGHT

  The night’s lazy, the moon bright. Sitting

  here, a recluse plays his pale white ch’in,

  and suddenly, as if cold pines were singing,

  it’s all those harmonies of grieving wind.

  Intricate fingers flurries of white snow,

  empty thoughts emerald-water clarities:

  No one understands now. Those who could

  hear a song this deeply vanished long ago.

  SPRING THOUGHTS

  When grasses in Yen ripple like emerald silk

  and lush mulberry branches sag in Ch’in,

  he’ll still dream of coming home one day,

  and I’ll still be waiting, broken-hearted.

  We’re strangers, spring wind and I. Why is it

  here, slipping inside my gauze bed-curtains?

  ANCIENT SONG

  Chuang-tzu dreams he’s a butterfly,

  and a butterfly becomes Chuang-tzu.

  All transformation this one body, boundless occurrence goes on and on:

  it’s no surprise eastern seas become western streams shallow and clear,

  or the melon-grower at Ch’ing Gate

  once reigned as Duke of Tung-ling.

  Are hopes and dreams any different?

  We bustle around, looking for what?

  WAITING FOR WINE THAT DOESN’T COME

  Jade winejars tied in blue silk….

  What’s taking that wineseller so long?

  Mountain flowers smiling, taunting me,

  it’s the perfect time to sip some wine,

  ladle it out beneath my east window

  at dusk, wandering orioles back again.

  Spring breezes and their drunken guest:

  today, we were meant for each other.

  MOUNTAIN DIALOGUE

  You ask why I’ve settled in these emerald mountains,

  and so I smile, mind at ease of itself, and say nothing.

  Peach blossoms drift streamwater away deep in mystery:

  it’s another heaven and earth, nowhere among people.

  GAZING INTO ANTIQUITY AT SU TERRACE

  Fresh willows among old gardens and overgrown terraces,

  clear song of chestnuts in wind: spring’s unbearable.

  There’s nothing left now— only this West River moon

  that once lit those who peopled the imperial Wu palace.

  GAZING INTO ANTIQUITY IN YÜEH

  Kou Chien shattered Wu, then returned to his Yüeh kingdom.

  Noble warriors home again boasting brocade robes, palace

  women like blossoms filled springtime galleries here.

  There’s nothing left now— only quail breaking into flight.

  AVOIDING FAREWELL IN A CHIN-LING WINESHOP

  Breezes filling the inn with willow-blossom scents,

  elegant girls serve wine, enticing us to try it.

  Chin-ling friends come to see me off, I try to leave

  but cannot, so we linger out another cup together.

  I can’t tell anymore. Which is long and which short,

  the river flowing east or thoughts farewell brings on?

  WANDERING T’AI MOUNTAIN

  In May, the imperial road level stone

  setting out, I ascend T’ai Mountain.

  A six-dragon sun crossing ten thousand

  ravines, valley streams meandering away,

  I leave horse tracks winding through

  emerald peaks all green moss by now,

  water bathing cliffs in spray, cascades

  headlong in flight. Among wailing pines,

  I gaze north at wild headwalls, tilting

  rock crumbling away east, and over

  stone gates standing closed, lightning

  storms rise from the bottom of earth.

  Higher up, I see islands of immortals,

  sea-visions all silver and gold towers,

  and on Heaven’s Gate, chant devotions.

  A pure ten-thousand-mile wind arrives,

  and four or five jade goddesses come

  drifting down from the nine distances.

  Smiling, they entice me empty-handed,

  pour out cup-loads of dusk-tinted cloud.

  I bow, then bow again, deeper, ashamed

  I haven’t an immortal’s talent. And yet,

  boundless, I can dwindle time and space

  away, losing the world in such distances!

  CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS

  (A.D. 742-755)

  CH’ING P’ING LYRICS

  Waking in the gallery

  at dawn, and told it’s snowing,

  I raise the blinds and gaze into pure good fortune.

  Courtyard steps a bright mirage of distance,

  kitchen smoke trails light through flurried skies,

  and the cold hangs jewels among whitened grasses.

  Must be heav
en’s immortals in a drunken frenzy,

  grabbing cloud and grinding it into white dust.

  JADE-STAIRCASE GRIEVANCE

  Night long on the jade staircase, white

  dew appears, soaks through gauze stockings.

  She lets down crystalline blinds, gazes out

  through jewel lacework at the autumn moon.

  DRINKING ALONE BENEATH THE MOON

  1

  Among the blossoms, a single jar of wine.

  No one else here, I ladle it out myself.

  Raising my cup, I toast the bright moon,

  and facing my shadow makes friends three,

  though moon has never understood wine,

  and shadow only trails along behind me.

  Kindred a moment with moon and shadow,

  I’ve found a joy that must infuse spring:

  I sing, and moon rocks back and forth;

  I dance, and shadow tumbles into pieces.

  Sober, we’re together and happy. Drunk,

  we scatter away into our own directions:

  intimates forever, we’ll wander carefree

  and meet again in Star River distances.

  2

  Surely, if heaven didn’t love wine,

  there would be no Wine Star in heaven,

  and if earth didn’t love wine, surely

  there would be no Wine Spring on earth.

  Heaven and earth have always loved wine,

  so how could loving wine shame heaven?

  I hear clear wine called enlightenment,

  and they say murky wine is like wisdom:

  once you drink enlightenment and wisdom,

  why go searching for gods and immortals?

  Three cups and I’ve plumbed the great Way,

  a jarful and I’ve merged with occurrence

  appearing of itself. Wine’s view is lived:

  you can’t preach doctrine to the sober.

  3

  It’s April in Ch’ang-an, these thousand

  blossoms making a brocade of daylight.

  Who can bear spring’s lonely sorrows, who

  face it without wine? It’s the only way.

  Success or failure, life long or short:

  our fate’s given by Changemaker at birth.

  But a single cup evens out life and death,

  our ten thousand concerns unfathomed,

  and once I’m drunk, all heaven and earth

  vanish, leaving me suddenly alone in bed,

  forgetting that person I am even exists.

  Of all our joys, this must be the deepest.

  THINKING OF EAST MOUNTAIN

  It’s forever since I faced East Mountain.

  How many times have roses bloomed there,

  or clouds returned, and thinned away,

  a bright moon setting over whose home?

  TO SEND FAR AWAY

  Far away, I think of Wu Mountain light,

  blossoms ablaze and a clear warm river.

  Still here, something always keeping me

  here, I face clouded southlands in tears.

  Heartless as ever, spring wind buffeted

  my dream, and your spirit startled away.

  Unseen, you still fill sight. News is brief,

  and stretching away, heaven never ends.

  THOUGHTS OF YOU UNENDING

  Thoughts of you unending

  here in Ch’ang-an,

  crickets where the well mirrors year-end golds cry out

  autumn, and under a thin frost, mats look cold, ice-cold.

  My lone lamp dark, thoughts thickening, I raise blinds

  and gaze at the moon. It renders the deepest lament

  empty. But you’re lovely as a blossom born of cloud,

  skies opening away all bottomless azure above, clear

  water all billows and swelling waves below. Skies endless

  for a spirit in sad flight, the road over hard passes

  sheer distance, I’ll never reach you, even in dreams,

  my ruins of the heart,

  thoughts of you unending.

  WANDERING UP LO-FU CREEK ON A SPRING DAY

  At the canyon’s mouth, I’m singing. Soon

  the path ends. People don’t go any higher.

  I scramble up cliffs into impossible valleys,

  and follow the creek back toward its source.

  Up where newborn clouds rise over open rock,

  a guest come into wildflower confusions,

  I’m still lingering on, my climb unfinished,

  as the sun sinks away west of peaks galore.

  ON HSIN-P’ING TOWER

  On this tower as I leave our homeland,

  late autumn wounds thoughts of return,

  and heaven long, a setting sun far off,

  this cold clear river keeps flowing away.

  Chinese clouds rise from mountain forests;

  Mongol geese on sandbars take flight.

  A million miles azure pure— the eye

  reaches beyond what ruins our lives.

  WATCHING A WHITE FALCON SET LOOSE

  High in September’s frontier winds, white

  brocade feathers, the Mongol falcon flies

  alone, a flake of snow, a hundred miles

  some fleeting speck of autumn in its eyes.

  SHANG MOUNTAIN, FOUR-RECLUSE PASS

  Hair white, four old sages cragged high

  and timeless as South Mountain itself,

  bitterly sure among cloud and pine:

  they’re hidden deep, unrecognizable

  here. Azure sky a cloud-swept window,

  cliffwalls all kingfisher blue across:

  dragons and tigers at war in the world

  still, of themselves, come to rest here.

  Ch’in losing the Way’s bright mirror,

  Han ascending into purple heavens:

  when the sun’s lost in rainbow shadow,

  North Star following it into obscurity,

  the sage spreads wings toward flight,

  helping sun and moon light our world.

  However venerable, they’re gone now:

  open scrolls on chests, darkness become

  the source of change, untold darkness

  gone vast and deep. The sounds of flight

  fill heaven’s highway. I look up into traces all boundless antiquity leaves.

  SPRING GRIEVANCE

  On a white horse bridled in gold, I go east of Liao-hai,

  spread embroidered quilts, fall asleep in spring winds.

  The moon sets, lighting my porch, probing dark lamps.

  Blossoms drift through the door, smile on my empty bed.

  TEASING TU FU

  Here on the summit of Fan-k’o Mountain, it’s Tu Fu

  under a midday sun sporting his huge farmer’s hat.

  How is it you’ve gotten so thin since we parted?

  Must be all those poems you’ve been suffering over.

  AT SHA-CH’IU, SENT TO TU FU

  Now that I’ve come here, I wonder why.

  This Sha-ch’iu life’s lazy and carefree,

  but in ancient trees near the city wall,

  sounds of autumn still swell at evening.

  Wine here never gets me drunk. And if

  local songs rekindle a feeling, it’s empty.

  My thoughts of you are like the Wen River,

  sent broad and deep on its journey south.

  AT SHA-CH’IU, FAREWELL TO WEI PA WHO’S LEAVING FOR THE WESTERN CAPITAL

  You arrived, a traveler from Ch’ang-an,

  and now, returning there, you leave.

  Headlong wind carries my thoughts away,

  filling trees there in the western capital,

  uneasy. There’s no saying how this feels,

  or if we’ll ever meet again. I look far

  without seeing you— look, and it’s all

  mist-gathered mountains opening away.

  SPUR OF THE MOMENT

&nbs
p; Facing wine, I missed night coming on

  and falling blossoms filling my robes.

  Drunk, I rise and wade the midstream moon,

  birds soon gone, and people scarcer still.

  WAR SOUTH OF THE GREAT WALL

  War last year at the Sang-kan’s headwaters,

  war this year on the roads at Ts’ung River:

  we’ve rinsed weapons clean in T’iao-chih sea-swells,

  pastured horses in T’ien Mountain’s snowbound grasses,

  war in ten-thousand-mile campaigns

  leaving our Three Armies old and broken,

  but the Hsiung-nu have made slaughter their own

  version of plowing.

  It never changes: nothing since ancient times but

  bleached bones in fields of yellow sand.

  A Ch’in emperor built the Great Wall to seal Mongols out,

  and still, in the Han, we’re setting beacon fires ablaze.

  Beacon fires ablaze everlasting,

  no end to forced marches and war,

  it’s fight to the death in outland war,

  wounded horses wailing, crying out toward heaven,

  hawks and crows tearing at people,

  lifting off to scatter dangling entrails in dying trees.

  Tangled grasses lie matted with death,

  but generals keep at it. And for what?

  Isn’t it clear that weapons are the tools of misery?

  The great sages never waited until the need

  for such things arose.

  DRINKING IN THE MOUNTAINS WITH A RECLUSE

  Drinking together among mountain blossoms, we

  down a cup, another, and yet another. Soon drunk,

  I fall asleep, and you wander off. Tomorrow morning,