By Wang Wei
In these twilight years, I love tranquility
alone. Mind free of all ten thousand affairs,
self-regard free of all those grand schemes,
I return to my old forest, knowing empty.
Soon mountain moonlight plays my ch'in,
and pine winds loosen my robe. Explain this
inner pattern behind failure and success?
Fishing song carries into shoreline depths.
Translated by David Hinton
From 'The Selected Poems of Wang Wei'
