Unpainted Masterpiece (for Brad Melamed)

When I paint my masterpiece

I already may have ceased

Painting masterfully at all

Instead consigned to that sketchy realm 

In the mind’s museum up on the wall

Where shadows flicker, dance and fall

My masterpiece may go completely

Unpainted after all

Painting by Brad Melamed
from the series When I Paint My Masterpiece 

A Hundred Thousand Worlds (Han Shan De Ching)

A hundred thousand worlds

Emptiness blossoms in shadow

Body and mind come together

Flowing in bright moonlight

Whether by cunning or love

Time just now has broken

To be within nowhere

In mind lies the proof

Image by Brad Melamed

百千世界

憨山德清

百千世界空華影

一片身心水月光

伎倆寵時消息斷

可中無處著思量

In Meditation Withering (Han Shan De Ching)

Deep into night sitting alone

In meditation withering

Poking at lifeless ashes

But what of the flame

Suddenly the clock’s chime

Calls from on high

A beautiful clear voice

That fills the frozen skies

枯禪

憨山德清

夜深獨坐事枯禪

撥盡寒灰火不然

忽聽樓頭鐘聲發

一聲清韻滿霜天

*  *  *  *  *

Deadwood Zen.  That's the title of this poem as translated by Bill Porter (my favorite translator of Chinese poetry).  Very evocative but not quite accurate.  The character 枯 (ku) refers to the withering or drying up of plants.  But what better case can be made for translation that's none too literal?  In the deadest of deadwood zen, as the poet tells us, there may come a spark of illumination.