By the Lake the Bright Red Bridge

By the lake the bright red bridge
sounds with the wheels of painted carriages.
The surge of spring is in the stream
and spring's clouds, like desire, rise,
yet the water's green as glass and polished clean,
a mirror clear of anything of earth's.
Drunk, and on the road, I am
bound in floating threads of spring.
Blossom hidden, a bird calls the traveler back.
The sun slants away as I return.
What's to be done with spring?


After the Swallow and the Swan, the Spring Goes

After the swallow and the swan, the spring goes.
I reckon carefully the million wafting silks, this floating life,
come like spring dreams, to last how long?
Gone, like morning clouds, beyond searching.
I heard the lute, untied my sash among mild spirits,
yet though my grasping tore their silken robes,
I could not keep them:
(who can hold the spring?) Don't stay the only sober one:
There must be many
sodden drunk
among the flowers.


Lang-yeh Creek

Mountain snows melt,
swell the stream.
I cross on a treefelled long ago.
No way to know
the distance to the source:
watch it rush
from among mountain flowers.

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