The Moon Pool

Home > Other > The Moon Pool > Page 9
The Moon Pool Page 9

by Alexander Goldstein

glow.

  23

  Platonic Love

  In the city I've passed through

  There is a maiden of arched brows;

  Pearls at her waist --

  How they tinkle and jingle

  While she treads!

  She plays with her pet

  In front of the blooming orchard;

  She strums her lute

  Under the full moon's height.

  Her long song resounds

  For months of running;

  Her belly dance is to be seen

  By a thousand of men. . .

  There is no need

  For such a long tarrying --

  A heat-loving hibiscus, I'm sure,

  Cannot withstand the winter cold.

  24

  An Agreement

  Being a man of wisdom,

  You ignore me by all means;

  When you're playing a fool,

  I try to ignore you, too.

  In order to be neither stupid

  Nor wise, from now on,

  Let’s cease to communicate,

  Even if for a while. . .

  With the longsome night I sing

  At the bright moon;

  With the long-awaited dawn

  I dance amid the pink clouds.

  But how can I manage

  To keep my cool and sit tight

  With my sparse hair

  Volitated in the chilly air

  Of the frozen autumn season!

  25

  This

  My mind is like the full moon in autumn,

  Or a pool -- clean and transparent like a jade.

  There is nothing to be comparable with this;

  So, teach me a word I can use to describe it.

  26

  Apart

  The weeping willows are hazy,

  Like in a thick smoke;

  Flying in wind petals --

  Whirling about like sleet.

  The husband lives apart,

  Leaving his wife's district;

  The wife resides in thinking

  Of her husband's remote region.

  Each one is at the opposite bank

  Of the Heavenly River;

  Who knows when will they meet,

  Standing on the Celestial Bridge?

  I am sending these words

  To the Bright Moon Tower --

  You will find no more

  The flying together mated sparrows.

  27

  The Strata

  The peach bloom is truly desired

  To weather thru the heat of summer,

  But the winds and moons

  Of the early fall urge on --

  They will not yield even a short.

  You may search for kind men all around,

  From of olden times none of them

  Is still staying with us, and it's verified!

  Day by day, it cannot be helped,

  The flowers alter and fall;

  Year after year people run thru change,

  Transmuting all their looks and souls.

  Today, where we use to raise the dust,

  In old days the sea lapped against the rocks.

  To retaste our old delights

  We have to turn over some new strata.

  28

  The Pivot

  As tradition states, Heaven’s way is like a perfect compass,

  Correlation of the number 3, while Earth’s way is similar

  To a perfect carpenter's square, correlation of the number 4.

  The compass in motion describes a complete circle

  Whereas the square brings things to the state of rest,

  Securing them in their proper places -- in the four corners

  Of the universe. What converts Heaven (3) and Earth (4)

  Is the number 5, correlation of the Centre, the Pole Star

  In the starlit sky. In the sense, we can contend that 3+4=5,

  Symbol of the pivot, spiral development, increase

  And complete upgrowth. The number 5 underlies

  Both numerical diagrams: one is 55, another is 45

  To total round 100, resume of the five generations.

  All things are contained within the womb of the universe

  Arranged around the Pole Star, the pivot of all existence.

  The sun and the moon establish the boundaries of spheres

  Of their influence to the left and to the right of the pivot.

  The Yin and Yang natural forces in secrecy make contacts;

  The four seasons sneak up without being noticed by others --

  By stealth they take their appropriate periods; five phases

  Conceal their motives until the right time makes them come.

  Once all the six directions: up and down, north and south,

  East and west become cohered with no apparent separation,

  The four seasonal divisions revolve in succession

  Around the Dipper constellation, as if the heavenly dial plate.

  To stick to the axis of the universe means

  To be born in spring, grown up in summer,

  Cropped in autumn and preserved in winter.

  This is the order defined by Heaven, once and for all.

  When the dynamic odd numbers represent the static

  And even-numbered spaces, the spiral development

  Takes place as the earnest of progress accomplished victoriously.

  Therefore, one who follows Heaven's will survives,

  But one who contradicts it will surely die despite initial progress.

  Similar, a man of wisdom has firm axis within his heart/mind,

  Also known as the Clay Crystal, which enables all things

  To rotate around his intents and which is similar to the Pole Star

  In the midst of the sky, the universal axis for keeping

  The powers of both primal entities, Heaven and Earth, linking.

  29

  Retirement

  A mountain dweller --

  His mind is calm and quiet;

  His only care is about the chain

  Of months move fast.

  He works hard picking funguses

  And herbs of eternity;

  Can all these searching

  And sorting make him immortal?

  His yard cleans up once the clouds

  Start to roll up and rack;

  The forest is bright

  Under the perfectly round moon’s disk.

  Why does he always

  Postpone his return to the world beneath?

  The cassia tree which grows

  On the other side of the moon

  Attaches him to this retirement for good.

  30

  Serenity

  The green brook -- the spring waters

  Are crystal clear;

  The moon's disk over a snowy peak

  Is flashily white.

  I am silently aware that my spirit

  Is initially bright;

  I am staring in air -- the scene

  Is even more serene.

  31

  Refinement

  The old scroll is enriched

  With the brilliant poems of remote times;

  My pot is flushed with the brew wine

  I’ve made from the fruits that I picked

  In the Grove of the Eighteen Divines.

  Walking around, I delight in watching

  The wild deer’s calves; sitting down,

  I keep them close to my thighs;

  Some of them cling to the left of my side,

  Some of them stick to the right.

  Frost and dew come through

  My thatched brims; the moon's disk

  Shines through the hole

  In my earthen pitcher for a long time.

  At such hours as these,

  I use to sip slowly a couple of cups,

  Reciting my verses -- a round number,

  I put them all in a random ro
w,

  Just as they cross my mind.

  If you want to know what my poems

  Are all about, they depict the human lives,

  One hundred years long, in which

  A true sympathy is alike a wild deer --

  It always set to flee into the thickets

  While an angry look can be likened to a bandog --

  Even if you banish it from sight,

  It won’t run away, adhering to you at both sides.

  Once you decide to subjugate the naughty ape --

  Your inflated Self, it’s best to start from listening

  To the lion’s roar of your Pure Mind!

  32

  Still in Retreat

  Clouds pile up about the rocky cliffs,

  Touching the bluish azure of eternity;

  A lonely path gets tangled among the hills—

  Not a single stranger threads it up steep slope.

  In the far off I gaze at the heavy sphere

  Hovered in the falling down twilight

  And the orphaned toad gives a wink at me

  With its third eye on the other moon’s side.

  Yes, its perfectly round face smiles at me,

  Grinning from one absent ear to another,

  And my mind becomes illuminated for awhile.

  I’m hearing warbling of a single nightingale --

  Tweeting away, it sustains a note and

  Sustains it again, filling in holes in my soul.

  I sit stiff, soaring above time and space --

  Kaleidoscope of images and symbols,

  Following the beating of my heart and

  Breathing technique of my vital points,

  Passes in endless train before my glance

  To drive me away, and only the deities

  And spirits know the terminal point

  Of my journey up to the next morn.

  Lodging up on the peak of my cloudy cliff,

  I idly live in my hut with a hedge

  Under two lofty pine trees. I let my life

  In retreat to end smoothly its course

  By bringing this lump of clay to its yellow source.

  Having a sigh, I think over my past up tonight

  And the rest of my innocence,

  For the umpteenth time, like a mountain brook

  Springing out its fathomless womb,

  Flows east to merge with ever violent ocean

  Of timeless ups and inescapable downs

  That, as before, grip me from taking a leap

  High into the bluish azure of eternity. . .

  33

  On the Werewolf Mountain

  The birds chirp -- I can’t really bear my feelings,

  At such hours I prostrate in my thatched shelter --

  Two yards on two yards, having no vigour to rise.

  Cherries and peaches red with lustre and shine;

  Maples and ash-trees are shaggy in their crowns.

  The setting sun merges with grey slopes of cliffs;

  Thin clouds bathe clean in the mountain springs.

  After a long day of toil in the mulberry field I feel

  The full moon’s sneaking up to take its central part

  In the red-and-black sky. . . After so many years

  Of self-extension and extreme alchemical efforts,

  Who's found the way of getting out of dull routine

  And country pains and driving up the

‹ Prev