finding a place...

Poet on the Mountain Top

Chen Zhou, 1427-1509

(Chinese hand scroll, ink on paper)


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There’s a place of enlightenment. The wind has its own vocabulary. The mountain, its own sense of breathing. You can watch the chest move – in & out, in & out. What you learn there will stay with you. You can try to give it shape with a pen – a story in words and lines. You can describe it, but you cannot write it.

And that should be enough.

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A poem by Cold Mountain – a reprise :

#16

People ask the way to Cold Mountain
but roads don’t reach Cold Mountain
in summer the ice doesn’t melt
and the morning fog is too dense
how did someone like me arrive
our minds are not the same
if they were the same
you would be here

        (Trans. Red Pine)