TRANSLATIONS FROM A LOST ORIGINAL
Neil Wenborn
poems after the landscapes of Tao-chi (1641-c.1720)
1
Two friends are talking in the bamboo
grove.
As darkness falls the murmur of their voices
mingles with late birdsong.
I sit here at a window half opened outwards,
hearing the cadences of conversation
without the words.
2
Painting at dusk. Riders on the
edge of nothingness.
From here they seem treading the clouds, lightfooted, removed from troubles.
From horseback, hungry, saddlesore, it is another wearisome journey
on mounts unfitted for the steep roads
to a summit that gets no closer.
3
Washing the inkstone: drifts of
unformed words spiral
slowly away from us, staining the clear water.
Behind us a world of industry
forges its merchandise, ciphering, loading brave ships.
We rise and turn to the hills
in silence, all I know of profit and loss
curling like smoke downstream to the unbridgeable sea.
4
A deal is clinched in an upper
room:
two heads bobbing close together, smiling handshakes.
Below the boats are moored, the ferrymen
hot and impatient; all around them
spring turns to summer along the sweating leaves.
A sleeked bird dips. The businessmen
drink wine together and descend to the waterfront,
each thinking he has fooled the other.
5
Ravine. Wind-stunted trees. Between
sheer banks
unbridled water plunging.
From the mountaintops, from the screes, from the parched scrub
it gathers, feeding the geometric courses,
filtering even to my still pools,
my cup, the pungent freshness of oblivion.
6
All day, beyond my pines, the
stranger has sat, watching.
Tonight, from the distant slopes, the solitude
of advancing evening crowds me like thought.
I close the window, shivering.
Far over the teeming valleys, the proud estates,
mountains unravel into cloud.
I can no longer tell the land from the sky.
