The Newly Planted Pines (by Qi Ji)

This is a poem by the poet-monk Qi Ji who wrote in the late Tang period, as the dynasty was settling into terminal decline.  This is the first of his poems that I've translated so I don't yet have any idea of the range of his work.  But I like the simplicity and understatement of this poem and his thoughtful way of describing cultivation in terms of both the inner and outer landscape.

The Newly Planted Pines

By a field near where

The monks have taught

Things grow in accordance

With Buddha’s law

Luxuriantly sprouting forth

When disheveled then weeded

In a hundred years

A man grows old but 

It will take a millennium

For these pines to

Attain their full stature

Peaceful and proper

In a thick stand they grow

Among bamboo and rocks

The wild apes hiding

In the forest nearby

A day will come when they will

Cast thick shade behind

And when the autumn wind blows

They will sway like an ocean wave

新栽松

野僧教种法

苒苒出蓬蒿

百岁催人老

千年待尔高

静宜兼竹石

幽合近猿猱

他日成阴后

秋风吹海涛