Jingting Shan Hill (after Li Po)
Distant birds flying high
the lonely cloud and I drift
watching each other without end
until only the hill remains.
As always, I question my choices. Chinese-Poems.com offered this transliteration of Li Po’s timeless poem:
Crowd birds high fly utmost
Lonely cloud alone go idle
Mutual watch both not tire
Only be Jingting Shan
How to capture the concept of idleness and the meditative quality of the last line (not to mention the piece as a whole)? Ah, decisions, decisions…
Confession: The last line confounded me, so I set the poem aside for a couple of months. Just yesterday I pulled it out and immediately knew what to do. The power of patience…
O at the Edges 
I’m glad you waited…
LikeLike
It took me many years and countless foiled attempts to realize that some things can’t be rushed. Of course I’m not bound by deadlines!
LikeLike
Such a rich source for writer’s fugue!
LikeLike
I find the process somehow refreshing. Immersing (submersing?) myself into these few lines engenders much. And there’s no lack of source material!
LikeLike
It set me off, and it may yet build into something, too! That’s the beauty of Chinese: a glass-bead-game of a script!
LikeLike
Yours is a wonderful version of the poem, simple but deep and moving.
LikeLike
Thank you. When in doubt, move towards simplicity!
LikeLiked by 1 person
“When in doubt, move towards simplicity” is not only true, it’s another poem beautifully penned.
LikeLike
I love that little poem, the way it expresses what happens as you and the cloud watch each other.
LikeLike
Which is probably why we’re still reading Li Po some 1200 years after his death!
LikeLike
You are something else, kudos. We creep up on great things slowly, incrementally.
LikeLike
Thank you. These days I seem to approach most things that way. 🙂
LikeLike
Love your blog and posts 🙂
LikeLike
A perfect rose cannot be forced to bloom in winter’s snow. When the sun returns, the earth warms, and the late spring rain gently soaks the ground, then the rose is called into being by life itself. Then the rose has no choice but to bloom. So it is with a great poem. Well done friend.
LikeLike
Yes, exactly! Thank you.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on How my heart speaks and commented:
Beautiful
LikeLike
Thank you for reblogging!
LikeLiked by 1 person
This worked very well for me and stilled my mind for a while.
LikeLike
Thank you. Then I (well, mostly Li Po) have done my job!
LikeLike
I love the amalgam of cloud and (hu)man. A lovely, meditative view of the original poem, transliterated. I like your flowing version better, fwiw! I think the second line of the transliteration is especially important, in how the cloud alone is inert, and the viewer gives it life. What an existential question! I feel it guides us, here, what, 1300-some years later, to the knowledge that we must embrace nature and the environment — that is, if we don’t realize, from the get-go, that we are one with nature already. Whaddya know, Li Po was quite a foreseer!
LikeLike
Thanks, Leigh. Though we try to separate ourselves, it seems we are indeed part of nature.
LikeLike
Amen. Patience. It worked!
LikeLike
I tend to regret those poems I’ve rushed to “completion.”
LikeLike
Patience paid off! Such a lovely poem was born.
LikeLike
Thank you.
LikeLike
The outcome of Patience is almost ALWAYS Rewarding! – Beautiful!!!
LikeLike
If I had only known that 20 years ago!
LikeLiked by 1 person