~

The plump beggar

     carries the Buddha within.

Old Feng Kan walks with a swagger.

     Young Lu-ch'iu Yin walks with his head bowed.

Wang Fan-chih admires the clouds.

     His friends know he will be late.

Old Feng Kan is so, so tall.

    Young Lu-ch'iu Yin is so, so short.

Wang Fan-chih is neither so, so tall, nor so, so short.

    Still, his feet touch the ground.

Young Lu-ch'iu Yin practices

     balancing on one foot, then the other.

Wang Fan-chih asks, "can you balance on no feet?"

     Then sits on the ground

with crossed legs, and laughs and laughs and laughs.

The old woman that sold flowers at the cemetery gate has died.

     There are no flowers for her grave.

Wang Fan-chih tells his friends 

     that he wants to be rich, but not too rich.

They ask how he will know if he is too rich.

     “By your greeting,” he says.

My friends call me fatty, and laugh.

     My enemies taunt me with derision.

I smile, and enjoy my steamy noodles.

Young Lu-ch'iu Yin looks for his first whisker

     in the pond's reflection.

Below the water's surface he sees a catfish with long whiskers.

     Lu-ch’iu walks away, content as things stand.

Wang Fan-chih's pockets are empty.

     He says, “if I had money I might be robbed.

I consider myself a lucky man.”

     His stomach says, "you are a fool."

The cold mist on his morning walk

     chills Old Feng Kan to the bone.

Later, a cup of tea warms him down to his toes—

     late autumn, Cold Cliff.

Is it true that mayflies live only one day?

     If so, you can be sure

they don't waste a moment on chit-chat.

Young Lu-ch'iu Yin is in need of a horse.

     He finds a three-legged horse for three coins and three prayers,

and a four-legged horse for four coins and four prayers.

     Such is life.

A monk comes and goes as he pleases.

     All he needs is a bowl, 

and someone to fill it.

Young Lu-ch'iu Yin asks the Master, 

     “which is more important, tending your garden

or tending your thoughts?”

     Master Wang Fan-chih sighs.

The fog below

     rolls in from the sea most afternoons,

by night it is gone—

     summer, Cold Cliff.

It is better to strive

     while your hair is still black.

When your hair is gray you will prefer to stand by the river

     and contemplate the current.

Everyone knows this.

The geese fly south.

     Another year has past.

My hair is white as snow.

Wang Fan-chih offers the farmer a coin

     and a prayer for a peck of grain.

The farmer wants two coins and two prayers.

     His wife wants three coins and three prayers.

“The crop was bad,” she says.

Grandfather stands by the river, contemplating the far side,

     then turns, and walks home.

It is not time.

     Still, he misses grandmother.

Old Feng Kan's jacket was once

     dyed the color of the ripest plum.

Now it is faded,

    and the plum is eaten.

Old Feng Kan sweeps the floor

    with a whisk,

the handle worn smooth with age and use.

    Dust rises like mist.

Cold Cliff 

     is home to one monk,

or maybe two.

     It's hard to say.

Scratch, scratch, scratch,

     come young Lu-ch'iu Yin's poems,

one after another.

     No one reads them.

Who listens to boys?

A monk likes to get drunk just like any other man,

     and why not?

“If all things were easy,”

     says Old Feng Kan,

“there would be no need for women.”

~