Poetry & Translation
Red Beans
The red bean grows in southern soil,
When spring arrives, the new buds swell.
I pray you gather all you can,
For nothing holds the heart’s true weight so well.
Fare Well- Master Hong Yi (Li Shutong)
By the farewell pavilion,
along the ancient road,
fragrant grass stains the edge of heaven green.
Evening winds brush the willows,
the aching flute song fades to silence,
and the sun sets behind hills, beyond hills.
At the brink of the sky,
at the corner of the earth,
half of those who knew my heart are scattered.
One flask of clouded wine to drain the remaining joy;
tonight, we part—
and the cold begins in the space between us.
The Universal Vessel
When Heaven deigns to grant a great mission to a soul,
it first must test the private will and let the hardship in.
It wears the bones to exhaustion and starves the very skin,
hollowing out the vessel until the old self is through.
By this, the ego is dismantled, the spirit aligned anew—
until one holds the steady light the Universe pours through.
