Yunnan and beyond

All the birds have flown up and gone; A lonely cloud floats leisurely by. We never tire of looking at each other - Only the mountain and I.

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees; I drink alone, for no friend is near. Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon, for he, with my shadow, will make three men. The Moon, alas, is no drinker of wine; Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side. Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave, I must make merry before the Spring is spent. To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams; In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks. While we were sober, three shared the fun; now we are drunk, each goes his own way. May we long share our odd inanimate feast, and meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.

The Old Dust The living is a passing traveler; The dead, a man come home. One brief journey betwixt heaven and earth, Then, alas! we are the same old dust of ten thousand ages. The rabbit in the moon pounds the medicine in vain; Fu-sang, the tree of immortality, has crumbled to kindling wood. Man dies, his white bones are dumb without a word When the green pines feel the coming of the spring. Looking back, I sigh; Looking before, I sigh again. What is there to prize in the life's vaporous glory?