Keeping Things Whole by Mark Strand

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.

When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in   

to fill the spaces

where my body’s been.

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

Re-Igniting The Candle Of The World

Do not fall victim to the same,
same-named sun that bears
on the odious eye.

When It rises grand and
falls backwards down the up-side
of the blue illusion, the bluision,

No thing is that as which it has been.
Let light fall like a leaf
into a darkness.

Darkness lights the distance
between old Henry and the thing,
the thing which has been carved

by his own dull mind
and of those before him.
Here in the dark, distance is endless,

and palpable.  All things became
Henry's own by exploding
previous cornerstones built in light,

And when sight broods
on dawn again in that same way,
let all of the spring and winter

mold a copious nothing
into the structural sturdiness of
everything.

Not an attack but an engagement of sorts

Dear class, (this blog will run all over)

I will be the first to admit my studies, what I engage in, is not necessarily in the realm of which you all are seeing.  If I must see the sun with a blank mind, how should I not see this bible as bizarre shapes with very little and thin turnymajigs?  I must allow it, the supreme fiction of Wally Wally ding-dong, to be bored with me because it is not mine.  The supreme fiction comes from nowhere else but the self that  is hidden, the self that is built back to stupidity while the other destroys itself, only for a meeting, to create and destroy once again.  I get to make it up for myself.  I write for you.

As for sight, I must say that I find it an odious sense.  One must forget sight, to hear to see.  Poems are meant to be read aloud or preformed, in my own world I would have to guess to say.  Some people in the class know that I am a musician.  I am engaged, encouraged, and enthralled with how things sound rather than the sight of them, and what sounds give sight to.  Why do so few people ask about the meaning of sound?  This is why Harmonium engaged me.  Tum-ti-tum-ti-tum-tum-tum!  To me that is much more fun!  The way things sound aggravates a more welcomed motion far more than sight ( I must admit there are things if I did see them I may run to or away from them...a man with a bloody knife, a naked woman covered in cream and rose petals).  But sound, or music (this term is open to interpretation) creates dancing, or even just a little foot tap in the man with a cane.

Dr. Sexson if I had sleeping pills in what dark hour would I have for music?  For do I not need music of the day as much as that of the night?

When I whistled in class I thought that some one might catch that I was meeting the Sam's scrawny cry with its significant opposite--the conversation our class was dwelling on only moments previous to the whistle.  If you hate the way a bird sounds do you not hate the way you sound, or your mother sounds, or the way I sound?

Sight does not move atoms or crumbs, but sound does.  Which is more swervey?
The ability to move the material world and others' material world is a power.

Words are not the only way of communication.  This is not a realm of new thought.  If you can't find the words then find the music.  Words are not the pinnacle of human emotion and expression; I don't believe there is one, unless every sense we own is tickled all at once--that would be a higher art form.  How did my thought taste? Plain I'm afraid?  Like air?  Did the words scratch or massage your skin?  could you smell the odor of the words?...not my breath.  Did the words visually, on the physical level, give you a show?  All they did was sound and based upon previously formulated meaning of meanings from others' fictions you make a thought, based on those sounds.  Words create an ugly web.  Look at how ugly all of these statements are.  They do nothing but try.  If we need words we need silence.  If we need intelligence we need to own our own stupidity.

Here is some stupidity:



                                                          :(:



                          which one is it?




                                                     Happy or sad?






                                                                             Actually it's just four dots and a curvy line.


untill the next gibberish hour I bid you all a lovely experience out there

.juysrkkfcghljvbkgfdlskyratjesfkghcjvkblGJfdjlskragejskdhjfkgl

                                    Balconies

I was elsewhere,

When he began to teeter

From the drinking, too much booze.

No right right foot, and the other left left.

They were laughing out on the balcony,

And the streets were empty.

And his mind was empty,

Pen and paper elsewhere.

It must have been on the out-back balcony.

All things spark, just to teeter

Some sway-way, back-and-forth, an all-in left.

All I have left: money for booze.

I wonder too, if he scrounged for booze. 

Sprinting up the long flights, pockets empty

And hands clanking full.  That right state of mind, it’s behind, it left.

A better, easier thought, of a full head now elsewhere,

I wonder too, which foot was first to its teeter?

But now, just thought of the 1:23 gusting balcony.

It seems, as if we all live on a balcony,

Whether cancer, day, sleep, knife, or just too much booze.

We all fall off, eventually all legs teeter,

Just too weak, leaving the lively Winnebago empty.

It’s a kind—or a kind of—rental, but is there an after-elsewhere?

And at such a fork, who chooses the path right or left?

Now they ponder what’s left,

Collecting everything, finding no notes on the balcony.

They have mourning in the night, and hoard Sunday smiles elsewhere.

Some find peace in calm candlelight, others calm in-depth in the depths of booze.

Whatever it may be, flood or fire, candles dry and bottles empty.

Altogether life is our teeter.

Like children, going up on the teeter

And down on the totter, does it still go?  once we’ve or they’ve left?

Small winds are pushing, Chaos blowing down streets and heads empty,

And through school grounds full of life.  We are born on a balcony.

And next to his hand flat on the ground, a shattered bottle of booze—

Whiskey.  The odor of stagnant life lingers, and breath goes to suck elsewhere.

Watch your step, or don’t.  Teeter everything you can or don’t, till elsewhere

Blows in your left ear, lying naked and soaked in booze

Your bottle’s empty, and your hands, a white-knuckled-clench on that balcony.

Figginffobo

            Explanation

Sometimes I can’t make out what is right

If he designed the garden, but banished

Are we not in hell after losing temptation’s fight?

And what, we are supposed to be judged

When we live in a world that can’t be harnessed?

When a conscience is mucked in sludge?

It all seems fucked, and in its entirety,

This standpoint of devout piety,

When religion comes in such a variety.

And we are supposed to believe

What religious documents leave?

No explanation says what’s truly worthy.

Perhaps Ippolit, sipping booze, was able to state

Why the slaughter of the fate

Was a just passage to that white gate.

But lose all tempting pleasure

And walk around in mindless leisure.

Rain, wind, gray skies, can all be shining weather.

bibbitybobbityboo

            The Outlook

I have a good view from here; it’s really quite amazing and grim.

I’m out on the balcony—a ways down—and can really see it all.

The city bustling; the forest rustling; what are those?

In the city, crowded but filled with a brilliance of culture,

Little stands, a market, gorgeous foreign fruits sold by the old women,

Mostly in dark colors and wearing stringy buns loosely tied.

Men selling shot glasses, fake sunglasses and purses, wallets, jackets,

Other leather and goofy stuff on the wobble-stone street,

Shouting with a smile, or a grimace, in an “I have to” way,

“Special price for you my friend, yes yes, juz for you”

The sun is hiding and popping-in in blue gaps, just for that moment,

It sprays gold onto the terraces where the oldfolks drink wine

And color mutterings in my ear I don’t know how to make out,

Like any piece of art.

Young women in the mid-twenties try to flaunt tight asses and bosoms bouncing

Always catch the mopeder’s eye and he, maybe she, toots a horn.

A couple of blacks get touchy with each other holding to a bench and to hips;

Mostly people notice but pretend not to notice mostly, and glance in peripheral

Winks thinking of what they want done with their pockets and fitters.

Streets are malls filled with young people wanting to look O-so-good in some form Of a Robin Hood styled boot, even the American girls back home are into it.

I appreciate how the un-appreciated music flows from the genius fingers of the Saxophonists, guitarists, accordionists, tuba-men, and the steel drummers that walk Up after a few songs and hold out a worn corduroy hat panhandling through life

Just to be able to handle this life.  Bums and Romanian vagrants beg on corners,

Sometimes with a few stray dogs asking for anything in return for a gapped smile.

The clothes always beaten, grayed by concrete and dust seem to melt right

Into the stone, on which they lay, sit and live.  The flies are buzzing close to the Garbage. I help when I can because I am living by charity too, but not as beat.

  Big chrome spyglasses post near the railing, only a euro a minute,

And my red figure twisted in a melting blur of shiny gray, I float upside-down.

I step to the right away from her and watch me bubble. 

                                              I can see the green too, lush, vapid of humans.

Leaves, each a character, gently ride bagged winds blowing from that strange Source

Who never really shows itself.  Trees trees trees always crawling on the fringe so

Beat by hands, because? A little red fox stalks and knows his way around so well

Between the trunks that our grandfathers feed, we are diffusion, but contained

While thought still flies from a secret voice; it endeavors to whisper its own slimed Soil.  Such loneliness can be felt and almost palpable by those intimate

Forces that forge the innerness.  The woods, I know, certainly have to look out on us

And wonder: what is this bustle, and why?  But they just don’t care, and are ready to Die in the present where only anything can “To be or not to be”.  The woods, naked As the Universe, just live now; growing or falling, they don’t need to achieve.

The Outlook:  True Meaning can never be known through anything such as eyes.  

Shibillybobay

It had been a long hard day

It had been a long hard day

And when I laid my body down

In blades rising from the ground

I found it was an easier way

Now my arms been cut

Now my arms been pressed

I been impressed by a soft green maze

It’s easier for a pillow and tree shades

Than the walk of hard civilized strut

Sometimes it seems simple

Sometimes it seems easy

To fall so soft and see

Everything swim by like bees

It brings my mind to its knees

I guess I’ve got to remember

I got to remember to forget

The way things should’ve went

Just ain’t the way history bent

Concrete over grass wasn’t my intent

But still I go on a livin’

And still I go on a livin’

So ashamed at what we do

But still I go on a livin’

Right along side of you

I’ll get it if I work real light

I’ll get it if I work real light

If I go drinking sweet into the night,

If I just forget love and its fight,

If I could just sit in this grass forever, I’d be right.

HEY THERE BLOGGER.COM AND BLOGGER.COM ONLY

TURNS OUT ALL OF YOU THINK IM A SPAMMER!  WELL HERE ARE A FEW VERY CLOSE AND HEARTILY INTRINSIC THOUGHTS.  I HOPE YOU FIND WHAT YOU NEED ON THE BLOG TO SHUT ME DOWN, WHICH I HAVE CREATED FOR A COLLEGE CLASS ON HOW TO LIVE AND WHAT TO DO.  IT SEEMS, AND WHAT A WONDERFUL WORD SEEMS IS, THAT YOU KNOW HOW TO LIVE AND WHAT TO DO FAR BETTER THAN I IF YOU CAN BLOCK MY STATEMENTS--AND PULITZER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR'S STATEMENTS(which I did not claim for my own)--MADE TO HOPEFULLY ENTERTAIN FELLOW COLLEAGUES OF LITERATE STUDIES INTELLECTUALLY.  I'M SOMEWHAT GLAD THAT THE PROBLEM HAS AROSE CONCERNING THE FACT THAT I COPIED AND PASTED A SET OF POEMS WITH AN INTRODUCTION ON THE DAMNED cold mountain WHICH I SUGGEST ALL OF YOU READ WITH HASTE FOR SURELY IT IS OF BENEFIT TO YOUR STATE OF MIND. ALSO, I SUGGEST WITH GREAT EMPHASIS THAT YOU ALL, BLOGGER.COM, IN ITS ENTIRETY, LISTEN TO CHARLIE PARKER AND DIZZE GILLESPIE.  IT IS MUSIC THAT WILL RAISE YOU FROM YOUR CUBICLE COMPUTER CHAIR INTO MOTIONS AND NOTICEABLE SWERVES.  I AM NOT A SPAMMER.  I EAT REAL MEAT.  I DO NOT WISH TO DISCONTINUE THE USE OF YOUR SERVICES AND I UNDERSTAND THAT PROBLEMS OCCUR, BUT IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM OF SHOWING YOUR FRIEND A FEW LINES OF ART:  DO NOT DISCONTINUE MY BLOG BECAUSE "Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site."  WHO SAYS IM TRYING TO BE RELEVANT?  SURELY NOT I, SAYS THE NARRATOR.  AND REPETITIVE? YES I AM SAYING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN:  think not.  AND I, TANNER JAMESON KEMP, MAKE SENSE?  BLOO BLAHH BLA BLEEEE BLEEEE BLAH!  O YEAH, THERE'S ONLY ONE LINK ON MY SITE. And the best part is is that I know you do not care one bit about this message and it may even further the blocking of my blog (WHICH IF I CHOOSE TO I MAY FIGHT) but if I cannot write what I feel because technology has stolen the art of the orator, THEN THERE ARE MANY THINGS INSIDE OF THE SOCIETY WE LIVE IN THAT MUST BE LOOKED UPON WITH GREATER CARE.  You are a part of crime as much as I am if my blog gets shut down because if I were speaking words you would have to sew my mouth shut.  A heinous and horrid crime, whether in my face or through the weak connection of internet no matter how strong the Wi-Fi, that should never be committed.

Sincerely with utmost regard to logic,
Tanner Jameson Kemp

P.S. classmates i hope i do not have to create a new blog for the sake of simple freeeeeedoms 


P.S.S. i was confronted with an email that said i must go through a series of steps to reactivate my blog to its fullest being.  i took these steps.  i received the email again four hours later. :0 


P.S.S.S. im deerunk 


P.S.S.S.S.  Did i prove i ain't no darned robot?  Any robot ever write you this good old nonsensical repetitive pooo? zoommas 14

Vulkayknow

From the window in her bedroom Miss Sinder could see the children pick up stones and roll them down from atop of Parker’s Hill laughing and jumping while the stones tumbled in twists and curvy-swervy bounces.  The hill had a small local cemetery that sat on the northern side gaining the least amount of sun.  Helen Sinder’s old mansion was still standing a hundred yards from Parker’s Hill and quite dirty and unkempt like an old doghouse that had seen too much of winter.  Its deadened yard had once been a garden.  A garden that had even made it into the newspapers, she thought alone.  It was filled with geraniums, pink primroses, partridge peas, glory of the snows, that were all planted at random, and mountain laurels, Madagascar jasmines, foxgloves, and every now and then a ghost flower.  These flowers covered the ground on all sides of the stepping-stones that cut straight through the budding beds to the white fence.  Another path cut to the east, about twenty feet from the gate, when walking out of the house, where a small fountain of a stone fox the color of bone used to help wash and quench all of the robins, finches, the black-chinned humming birds.  Here there was an opening where the plump barbera grapes swelled a large purple and grew tender and sweet on the green vines.  The vines clung to a white arch that stood six feet behind the fountains.  The fountain was encircled by yellow and loblolly pines and aspens.  When the aspens bronzed in autumn it gave the impression from the window that pines had freckled themselves gold.

            To her the fountain had become a sort of volcano.  Its heavy regurgitation of what it contained and had held many years weighed heavy on her cycle after cycle, and even made her take down her grandmother’s Irish silver cross that rested just above the mantle on the fireplace.  She threw it out into the garden and waited for the earth to swallow it, to see if it could bring itself back to life as jesus had done, or if it would wane endlessly until the cross had merely blown away in the heavy slow churning of the dirt. 

In Miss Sinder’s old age, the town forgot her, forgot she was there since Robert’s death because she stopped leaving the house, and stopped caring.  Her mind wandered most days, just as the myth of the mansion wandered about the children of the townsfolk.  They would whisper stories that an old spirit haunted its barren white walls and sometimes you could see an old man or woman floating with stormy hair and eyes.  The children would dare one another to go pick a grape, the last plant living in the yard and the closest to the house.  When those brave enough picked a grape or two and bit into them, the seeds pushed back like bones against their teeth.  They would always spit the seeds out, returning them to the ground before running away.  Those are Robert’s bones she thought.

The day she died she felt like a tomb.  The house had become what she thought of it, quite weary and dead.  She could feel things leave her, and fall away.  The earth opened up like a mouth and cried for her.  She became everything when she died.

i know this is long, just read it: it's cool

HAN SHAN, THE COLD MOUNTAIN POEMS, tr. Gary Snyder

Preface to the Poems of Han-shan

by Lu Ch'iu-yin, Governor of T'ai Prefecture

No one knows what sort of man Han-shan was. There are old people who knew him: they say he was a poor man, a crazy character. He lived alone seventy Li (23 miles) west of the T'ang-hsing district of T'ien-t'ai at a place called Cold Mountain. He often went down to the Kuo-ch'ing Temple. At the temple lived Shih'te, who ran the dining hall. He sometimes saved leftovers for Han-shan, hiding them in a bamboo tube. Han-shan would come and carry it away; walking the long veranda, calling and shouting happily, talking and laughing to himself. Once the monks followed him, caught him, and made fun of him. He stopped, clapped his hands, and laughed greatly - Ha Ha! - for a spell, then left.

He looked like a tramp. His body and face were old and beat. Yet in every word he breathed was a meaning in line with the subtle principles of things, if only you thought of it deeply. Everything he said had a feeling of Tao in it, profound and arcane secrets. His hat was made of birch bark, his clothes were ragged and worn out, and his shoes were wood. Thus men who have made it hide their tracks: unifying categories and interpenetrating things. On that long veranda calling and singing, in his words of reply Ha Ha! - the three worlds revolve. Sometimes at the villages and farms he laughed and sang with cowherds. Sometimes intractable, sometimes agreeable, his nature was happy of itself. But how could a person without wisdom recognize him?

I once received a position as a petty official at Tan-ch'iu. The day I was to depart, I had a bad headache. I called a doctor, but he couldn't cure me and it turned worse. Then I met a Buddhist Master named Feng-kan, who said he came from the Kuo-ch'ing Temple of T'ien-t'ai especially to visit me. I asked him to rescue me from my illness. He smiled and said, "The four realms are within the body; sickness comes from illusion. If you want to do away with it, you need pure water." Someone brought water to the Master, who spat it on me. In a moment the disease was rooted out. He then said, "There are miasmas in T'ai prefecture, when you get there take care of yourself." I asked him, "Are there any wise men in your area I could look on as Master?" He replied, "When you see him you don't recognize him, when you recognize him you don't see him. If you want to see him, you can't rely on appearances. Then you can see him. Han-shan is a Manjusri (one who has attained enlightenment and, in a future incarnation, will become Buddha) hiding at Kuo-sh'ing. Shih-te is a Samantabbhadra (Bodhisattva of love). They look like poor fellows and act like madmen. Sometimes they go and sometimes they come. They work in the kitchen of the Kuo-ch'ing dining hall, tending the fire." When he was done talking he left.

I proceeded on my journey to my job at T'ai-chou, not forgetting this affair. I arrived three days later, immediately went to a temple, and questioned an old monk. It seemed the Master had been truthful, so I gave orders to see if T'ang-hsing really contained a Han-shan and Shih-te. The District Magistrate reported to me: "In this district, seventy li west, is a mountain. People used to see a poor man heading from the cliffs to stay awhile at Kuo-ch'ing. At the temple dining hall is a similar man named Shih-te." I made a bow, and went to Kuo-ch'ing. I asked some people around the temple, "There used to be a Master named Feng-kan here, Where is his place? And where can Han-shan and Shih-te be seen?" A monk named T'ao-ch'iao spoke up: "Feng-kan the Master lived in back of the library. Nowadays nobody lives there; a tiger often comes and roars. Han-shan and Shih-te are in the kitchen." The monk led me to Feng-kan's yard. Then he opened the gate: all we saw was tiger tracks. I asked the monks Tao-ch'iao and Pao-te, "When Feng-kan was here, what was his job?" The monks said, :He pounded and hulled rice. At night he sang songs to amuse himself." Then we went to the kitchen, before the stoves. Two men were facing the fire, laughing loudly. I made a bow. The two shouted Ho! at me. They struck their hands together -Ha Ha! - great laughter. They shouted. Then they said, "Feng-kan - loose-tounged, loose-tounged. You don't recognize Amitabha, (the Bodhisattva of mercy) why be courteous to us?" The monks gathered round, surprise going through them. ""Why has a big official bowed to a pair of clowns?" The two men grabbed hands and ran out of the temple. I cried, "Catch them" - but they quickly ran away. Han-shan returned to Cold Mountain. I asked the monks, "Would those two men be willing to settle down at this temple?" I ordered them to find a house, and to ask Han-shan and Shih-te to return and live at the temple.

I returned to my district and had two sets of clean clothes made, got some incense and such, and sent it to the temple - but the two men didn't return. So I had it carried up to Cold Mountain. The packer saw Han-shan, who called in a loud voice, "Thief! Thief!" and retreated into a mountain cave. He shouted, "I tell you man, strive hard" - entered the cave and was gone. The cave closed of itself and they weren't able to follow. Shih-te's tracks disappeared completely..

I ordered Tao-ch'iao and the other monks to find out how they had lived, to hunt up the poems written on bamboo, wood, stones, and cliffs - and also to collect those written on the walls of people's houses. There were more than three hundred. On the wall of the Earth-shrine Shih-te had written some gatha (Buddhist verse or song). It was all brought together and made into a book.

I hold to the principle of the Buddha-mind. It is fortunate to meet with men of Tao, so I have made this eulogy.

THE COLD MOUNTAIN POEMS, tr. Gary Snyder

1

The path to Han-shan's place is laughable,

A path, but no sign of cart or horse.

Converging gorges - hard to trace their twists

Jumbled cliffs - unbelievably rugged.

A thousand grasses bend with dew,

A hill of pines hums in the wind.

And now I've lost the shortcut home,

Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?

2

In a tangle of cliffs, I chose a place -

Bird paths, but no trails for me.

What's beyond the yard?

White clouds clinging to vague rocks.

Now I've lived here - how many years -

Again and again, spring and winter pass.

Go tell families with silverware and cars

"What's the use of all that noise and money?"

3

In the mountains it's cold.

Always been cold, not just this year.

Jagged scarps forever snowed in

Woods in the dark ravines spitting mist.

Grass is still sprouting at the end of June,

Leaves begin to fall in early August.

And here I am, high on mountains,

Peering and peering, but I can't even see the sky.

4

I spur my horse through the wrecked town,

The wrecked town sinks my spirit.

High, low, old parapet walls

Big, small, the aging tombs.

I waggle my shadow, all alone;

Not even the crack of a shrinking coffin is heard.

I pity all those ordinary bones,

In the books of the Immortals they are nameless.

5

I wanted a good place to settle:

Cold Mountain would be safe.

Light wind in a hidden pine -

Listen close - the sound gets better.

Under it a gray haired man

Mumbles along reading Huang and Lao.

For ten years I havn't gone back home

I've even forgotten the way by which I came.

6

Men ask the way to Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain: there's no through trail.

In summer, ice doesn't melt

The rising sun blurs in swirling fog.

How did I make it?

My heart's not the same as yours.

If your heart was like mine

You'd get it and be right here.

7

I settled at Cold Mountain long ago,

Already it seems like years and years.

Freely drifting, I prowl the woods and streams

And linger watching things themselves.

Men don't get this far into the mountains,

White clouds gather and billow.

Thin grass does for a mattress,

The blue sky makes a good quilt.

Happy with a stone under head

Let heaven and earth go about their changes.

8

Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,

The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:

The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,

The wide creek, the mist blurred grass.

The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain

The pine sings, but there's no wind.

Who can leap the word's ties

And sit with me among the white clouds?

9

Rough and dark - the Cold Mountain trail,

Sharp cobbles - the icy creek bank.

Yammering, chirping - always birds

Bleak, alone, not even a lone hiker.

Whip, whip - the wind slaps my face

Whirled and tumbled - snow piles on my back.

Morning after morning I don't see the sun

Year after year, not a sign of spring.

10

I have lived at Cold Mountain

These thirty long years.

Yesterday I called on friends and family:

More than half had gone to the Yellow Springs.

Slowly consumed, like fire down a candle;

Forever flowing, like a passing river.

Now, morning, I face my lone shadow:

Suddenly my eyes are bleared with tears.

11

Spring water in the green creek is clear

Moonlight on Cold Mountain is white

Silent knowledge - the spirit is enlightened of itself

Contemplate the void: this world exceeds stillness.

12

In my first thirty years of life

I roamed hundreds and thousands of miles.

Walked by rivers through deep green grass

Entered cities of boiling red dust.

Tried drugs, but couldn't make Immortal;

Read books and wrote poems on history.

Today I'm back at Cold Mountain:

I'll sleep by the creek and purify my ears.

13

I can't stand these bird songs

Now I'll go rest in my straw shack.

The cherry flowers are scarlet

The willow shoots up feathery.

Morning sun drives over blue peaks

Bright clouds wash green ponds.

Who knows that I'm out of the dusty world

Climbing the southern slope of Cold Mountain?

14

Cold Mountain has many hidden wonders,

People who climb here are always getting scared.

When the moon shines, water sparkles clear

When the wind blows, grass swishes and rattles.

On the bare plum, flowers of snow

On the dead stump, leaves of mist.

At the touch of rain it all turns fresh and live

At the wrong season you can't ford the creeks.

15

There's a naked bug at Cold Mountain

With a white body and a black head.

His hand holds two book scrolls,

One the Way and one its Power.

His shack's got no pots or oven,

He goes for a long walk with his shirt and pants askew.

But he always carries the sword of wisdom:

He means to cut down sensless craving.

16

Cold Mountain is a house

Without beans or walls.

The six doors left and right are open

The hall is sky blue.

The rooms all vacant and vague

The east wall beats on the west wall

At the center nothing.

Borrowers don't bother me

In the cold I build a little fire

When I'm hungry I boil up some greens.

I've got no use for the kulak

With hs big barn and pasture -

He just sets uo a prison for himself.

Once in he can't get out.

Think it over -

You know it might happen to you.

17

If I hide out at Cold Mountain

Living off mountain plants and berries -

All my lifetime, why worry?

One follows his karma through.

Days and months slip by like water,

Time is like sparks knocked off flint.

Go ahead and let the world change -

I'm happy to sit among these cliffs.

18

Most T'ien-t'ai men

Don't know Han-shan

Don't know his real thought

And call it silly talk.

19

Once at Cold Mountain, troubles cease -

No more tangled, hung up mind.

I idly scribble poems on the rock cliff,

Taking whatever comes, like a drifting boat.

20

Some critic tried to put me down -

"Your poems lack the Basic Truth of Tao."

And I recall the old timers

Who were poor and didn't care.

I have to laugh at him,

He misses the point entirely,

Men like that

Ought to stick to making money.

21

I've lived at Cold Mountain - how many autumns.

Alone, I hum a song - utterly without regret.

Hungry, I eat one grain of Immortal medicine

Mind solid and sharp; leaning on a stone.

22

On top of Cold Mountain the lone round moon

Lights the whole clear cloudless sky.

Honor this priceless natural treasure

Concealed in five shadows, sunk deep in the flesh.

23

My home was at Cold Mountain from the start,

Rambling among the hills, far from trouble.

Gone, and a million things leave no trace

Loosed, and it flows through galaxies

A fountain of light, into the very mind -

Not a thing, and yet it appears before me:

Now I know the pearl of the Buddha nature

Know its use: a boundless perfect sphere.

24

When men see Han-shan

They all say he's crazy

And not much to look at -

Dressed in rags and hides.

They don't get what I say

And I don't talk their language.

All I can say to those I meet:

"Try and make it to Cold Mountain."

I know this deals with the Tao but c'mon.

This is a lot like the snow man with a different twist and a nice little story to go along with. If you want to be in "places" get to the woods every now and sometime then quite so often; watch nature play. "Grow more with less."