"In a crystalline radiance of day's last light,
I frolic along the river shallows, paddle light,
then enchanted by water creatures, drift
all effortless ease across their clear depths.
A white-haired man trailing a fish hook,
a girl rinsing gauze clean, makeup fresh:
we gaze and gaze, a recognition swelling,
a pulsing blush, then can't find the words."
- Meng Hao-jan (689-740) , translated from the Chinese by David Hinton, Brooklyn, Archipelago Books: 2004.
Meng Hao-jan was the first Chinese poet of imagist landscapes. He lived during the T'ang Dynasty (618-907), one of the great periods in Chinese literature, at a time when its capital was the largest city in the world. Despite the importance of his work, Hinton's is the first translation into English.
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