Son Mountain 1 (transcreation of a Cold Mountain poem)

(from trans. RP-131, RH-300, GS12, BW-38)
For thirty years I lived in the world

wandering more than ten thousand miles,

walking by rivers with lush green grass

passing the border where the red dust burns,

mixing up potions in search of immortality,

reading the classics and writing my verse,

and now I’ve returned home to Cold Mountain

to rest in the stream and wash out my ears.

RP-131

Born thirty years ago

I've traveled countless miles

along rivers where the green rushes swayed

to the frontier where the red dust swirled

I've made elixirs and tried to become immortal

I've read the classics and written odes

and now I've retired to Cold Mountain

to lie in a stream and wash out my ears

RH-300

Born thirty years ago;

I've been constantly roaming about—one thousand, ten thousand li.

I've walked by rivers where the green grasses merged,

Entered the borders where red dust kicked up.

Refining drugs, in vain I sought to become an immortal;

I read books and wrote poems on historical themes.

But today I've come home to Han-shan1.

To pillow my head on the stream and wash out my ears.

GS-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.

BW-38

Thirty years ago I was born into the world.

A thousand, ten thousand miles I've roamed,

By rivers where the green grass lies thick,

Beyond the border where the red sands fly.

I brewed potions in a vain search for life everlasting,

I read books, I sang songs of history,

And today I've come home to Cold Mountain

To pillow my head on the stream and wash my ears.

Poetry Dares To Go Where No Words Do

i

Translating Nisargadatta:

the rare one

dissolves

the individual;

the one

who understands

the play

of one

transcends

the one;

no words beyond.

ii

The stars sound like crickets tonight.

After hydrogen appears the snake.

Duality is like laughing gas.

H-bomb beats laughing gas beats rock.

River Talking One

The river is my mountain

and this apartment is my hut—

I’m not a hermit or a recluse

but I choose to be alone.

I’ve deconstructed personality to such extent

that people now appear to be mere clouds of thoughts

and talking to the love one really is appears to be impossible.

Exceptions to this rule are those whose love I’ve known

in what now seems another life.

Not only that, I know I still will backslide

and wish that disarrangement not on anyone.

So to that revelation in this myth,

the river may reflect the clouds

yet always be the river.

True Breath

These words I now exhale. 

Time isn't. 

Space is. 

Reality is neither. 

In other words, 

when I believe myself to be a thought 

in memory of time,

I'm not;

but as belief is deconstructed

and I understand myself to be this open

knowledge of space,

I am;

and resting in this universal being,

reality inhales.

Return to Self-Awareness

Being may be a fetish but dreaming is the greatest. One person’s ying is another person’s yang. So when in doubt, erase.

Not this, not this, is the gist of every mantra. And awareness is that experience beyond all experience.

Don't believe in the known but keep faith in the unknown. For I am that awareness before any judgment.

In other words, I’m only as old as I think I am. And I think what I've been taught. But no one teaches being.

It’s said there are no last words. Every thought will be finished until love. Still, being is the knowledge of the unknown.

Resignation Day

Being feels like the sea.

The absolute ocean

stirs

into being

and the waves of I-am take

a life of their own.

Usurpation hurts interregnum me.

Dark Matters

i

The absolute unknown pure awareness is always stirring

with the dark wild and obscure energetic knowing of self-awareness.

Being is the dark matter of space-time.

Mind lights up the place with story.

ii

In this August slant of time, the sun now sets before the hour of eight. Even the summer dreams of green infinity begin to yellow.

It's true that everything about the day is fiction. 

But the thought of waking is its prodigious masterpiece.

Self-awareness happens and what happens turns to being.

So the apple doesn't fall that far; it merely lands within its own universe.

Walking home across a midnight field, I see a falling star.

Falling through the dark wild sky, I search for Eve anew again.

Caterpillar Smoke

For the unknown 

to be aware 

of the unknown 

is one thing. 

But to be 

this knowledge is 

something completely

different.

Being is

the mushroom

cloud

of self-awareness.

Eleven Ways of Looking at One

It's not a question of faith.

The absolute unknown is there.

That is a fact.

In the deep-sleep-like absolute,

being aware of that absolute unknown occurs,

and the big bang dream-like experiencing takes place. And time.

In the unknown absolute,

there's nothing personal.

There is a constant breathing though.

Not knowing is

a deep and wide

potentiality.

In one, two begins. 

But three is limited—

because in one, two claims to be two. 

In the beginning there's nothing to say.

And in time, because of that which can't be said,

there's still nothing to say.

The seed has sprouted. Let

it

dream.

The absolute can't be known.

That is what I am.

To that, this being only happens.

Deconstruction is easy.

Transcending knowledge is not.

The first love is the strongest.

From two, one is separate.

From zero, one isn't.

Krishna says one is one.

Or, zero and two are the same, love.

But one changes.

How is this?

My Transcreation of a Cold Mountain Poem

Vague, dark, Cold Mountain way

Empty, useless, banks of cold river

The singsong of birds is always present

Still and silent, no traveler is near

Whisper, sharp breath, the wind cuts my face

Flake upon flurry, the snow buries all forms

Dawn after dawn, there is no sun

Year after year, no knowing of spring

This is my transcreation of a Cold Mountain poem, utilizing these translations of Red Pine, Robert Henricks, and Gary Snyder:

The trail to Cold Mountain is faint

the banks of Cold Stream are a jungle

birds constantly chatter away

I hear no sound of people

gusts of wind lash my face

flurries of snow bury my body

day after day no sun

year after year no spring

~Red Pine (38)

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.

~Gary Snyder (9)

Dark and obscure— the way to Han- shan;

Far apart— the shores of the cold mountain stream.

Chirp, chirp— constantly there are the birds;

Silent and still— in addition there are no men.

Whisper, whisper— the wind blows in my face;

Whirling and swirling— the snow piles up all around.

Day after day— I don't see the sun;

And year after year— I've known no spring.

~Robert Henricks (31)