A Simple Utterance

Here's a poem I translated yesterday by the poet-monk Jia Dao.  I think this will make a good addition to the collection of Chan poems I'm in the process of assembling for publication under the title The Poetry of Awakening.  As with many of the greatest poems written in this tradition, Jia Dao is writing here about being in a liminal state, and provides us with a poem that hovers between a literal and metaphorical description of the experience of awakening.

In the middle of the night

Not quite myself I rise

To draw water from

Deep inside the well

The forest trees

Are bathed in white

The stars shimmer

In the clear sky

口號

賈島

中夜勿自起

汲此百尺泉

林木含白露

星斗在青天