People search for cloud roads

but cloud roads can't be found

the peaks are high and sheer

the streams are wide and dark

ridges rise in front and back

clouds stretch from east to west

I'll tell you where the cloud roads are

cloud roads are in space

Cold Mountain

from

The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain

    

 

 

I have heard on Mount Tientai

somewhere are trees of jade

although I say I'll look

a stone bridge blocks the way

this is why I'm distressed

my good days are almost gone

today when I looked in at mirror

all I saw were wisps of white

Cold Mountain

from

The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain

Another day, another sunrise in the mountains...

Heading for the hills. Dawn light.

 

When the pain of love increases your joy,

roses and lilies fill the garden of your soul.

Rumi

 

Only Now

We thought we would recall the single place

we had set out for and forget the rest

but it is the going we remember

it is the way that comes along with us

and with no one else now and the place

we set out for was not there even then

it had already been forgotten there

yet we remember the river we crossed

the stone bridge and old trees where it left us

and the small bluebird above us with its

hidden nest to which it was bringing back

what it had found where did we go from there

nothing we saw then ever had a name

and the river flowed on behind us

W.S. Merwin

from

Garden Time

 

 

At Tiye Temple

I play with stones and sit besides the stream, 

I search for flowers and walk around the temple.

Sometimes I listen to the songs of birds;

The sounds of spring are everywhere.

Bai Juyi

Springtime in the rockies