Saturday, August 13, 2016

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

催人老
千年待

静宜兼竹石
幽合近猿猱

他日成阴后
吹海涛





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