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I Get Up From My Sickbed and Sit By Myself


ISSUE:  Spring 1978

Yttan Hung-tao

The wild grass—green and misty; has there ever been an autumn which did not bring pain? This sick man’s house has no visitors— even my little dog sleeps all day, I must look in books for things to use in poems; no money for wine to warm me up, I put on extra clothes. The door shut, I read Chuang Tzu: the chapters on Horses’ Hoofs and The Floods of Autumn.

Yüan Hung-tao

ON HEARING THAT A GIRL OF THE TS’UI FAMILY HAS BECOME A DISCIPLE OF THE BUDDHIST MASTER WU-NIEN—PLAYFULLY OFFERED TO THE MASTER

She has cut off her conch-shell hairdo,     thrown away her eyebrow pencil;

one indulgence remains—a single cup of tea.

Her sandal-wood clappers now accompany     Sanskrit chanting;

her silk dress has been recut:     a makeshift cassock.

Her mind is like quiet water     reflecting the moon.

Her body is a cold forest     still putting forth blossoms.

How many times can you remember     the hand of ordination         on her brow?

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