July 21st, 2019

Overnight at Stone-Gate Cliffs

I spent the morning digging out orchids,
afraid frost would soon leave them dead,
passed the night among fringes of cloud,
savoring a moon up beyond all this rock,
chortles telling me birds have settled in,
falling leaves giving away fresh winds.
Sounds weave together in the ear, strange
unearthly echoes all crystalline distance,
though there's no one to share wonders
or the joys in wine's fragrant clarities.
We'll never meet again now, I sit beside
a stream, sun-drying my hair for nothing.

Hsieh Ling-yun (385-433)