Reply to a Message from Magistrate Zhang - a translation

In these later years, I value silence;
worldly concerns no longer stir my heart.
I now move through the days with no plan
but to retire unencumbered to the woods of my youth,
where pine-scented breezes can play through my robe
whilst the moonlit mountain amplifies the music of my lute.
You ask if there are laws governing success or failure;
I say: Hear the song of the fly-fisher, rising up from the riverbank.

English rendering of this poem by Wang Wei (699–759)

© 2017 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Unintended Consequences

A constant challenge,
being among the upright
while the world lies,
axis tangent confronted,
as horizon.

It is a myth
that things rise or fall
in accordance with principles
mathematical and scientific,
on trajectories discernable.

Happening is
the experience of nature,
opportunity for constant trial,
practice without perfect,
being as exercise.

There is no futility;
all is intended
to confound and perplex,
in gains, losses and entailments,
along the shifting sands of possibility.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen