Jee aur aieee k sadme k mare ** jte h anjne anokhe unvrsts k hawale,nya clg nya jgh nye dost sb kch hta h nw nw,clg k strtng s hr ksi k dil m hta h rgng ka dar....2nd yr m cnr bnne ka hta h sbko gurur,frnds kai grp m bat jte h,hr koi dkhte h nye luks m,3rd yr m sbko ati h apni jimedari ka ahsas aur fnl yr ata h dston m fasle bdhte h...rah dkhe the is din k kbse,age k sapne saja rkhe the njane kbse,sb bde utavle the yhn se jne ko,zndgi ko dusre trke se dkhne ko....pr njane aj dil m kch aur he ata h,piche ja k waqt ko rok k apne andr sare lmhe ko samet lne ka jee krta h....at d strtng f btech kha krte the bdi muskil s y 4 sal bitenge lkn kse pta tha y sb chd k jne ka mn ni krga...na vulne wali kch yadein reh *** o yadein jo ab jine ka sahara bn ***...na jne aj q un palon k yad bht ati h jin baton ko lekar tab rote the ,aj un palon ko yad kar bht hsi ati h....y sch k ankhein nam ** jte h k mri tang ab kn kncha krga,m apne bton s kska sar khaungi,pranks ksk 7 krngi,ab mjhe kn itna jhlga,ksk smne ntnki krngi,jin dst p lakh kurban whn 1 rupye k ly  kn ldhnge,kaun rat vr bina soye bt krga,kaun bina pche 1 dusre ka chj istml krga,kaun nya nm rkhga,bina ksi bt k m ab ksse ldhungi,bina ks tpc k fal2 bt kn krga,bkws q kn krga,xam k ek din phle o tyri o rate,kn rat var 7 jag kr pdhga,kn fail hne p dilasa dlyga,y hasin pal ab ksk 7 jiungi....yad ati h o rec k choti si cntn bar bar jhn kch v ni mlta mre yar fr v na jane q hum gye hnge so bar...tum jse kmine dost khn mlnge jo khai m v dhaka de ayen sale srs mtr ko v joke m cnvrt kr de,par fr tmhe bachane khud v kud jye....mre hrkton se nakhro se jid s prsan kn hga ,ksk 7 brng lctrs jhlngi..bina mtlb k ksko v dkh kr pglon k trh hsna,na jne y fr kb hga....ky hm y sb fr krpaenge....bdy clbrt,ek h rm p bth k 1 dusre s wtsap p bt krna...rat k 3-4 bje khna pkana....bina ksi mtlb k rat ko chilana....mlk pina...pgl jse hrkt krna..mlk ghumna....kaun mjhe apni kabiliat pr vrosa aur jyda hawa m udne pr zamin p lyga....mre khusi m sch m khus kn hga,mre gam m mjhse jyda dukhi kn hga....keh do doston y dubara kb hga....dil m ek kasak hoti h jb hr ankhein nam hti h,fir mlne k wade se hm ek dusre se juda hte h,kv na akle rhne wle dost bas yadon k sahare zndgi bitate h....lkn jb v y clg k din yad ate h ankhon m hasin aur ansu ek 7 late h...engnr bnne k khusi v ansu rok na pai ,q k njr aa rai t doston s judai...ab jo hna tha o ** gya akhir m sbse juda ** h gye....aj v un palon ko yad kr k ansun rok ni pte h ....nkl he jte h...aur yuhi lkh lkh k apko pka rai hn....char sal yu he gye hmri beet..ab khn mlnge wo dost wo mit...dua krt hn sb k ly race y zndgi k jao tm jit....

Honourable Younger Sister,

This village is a world of stone. Lanes, houses, courtyard walls, towers, pavilions, tables, benches are all hewn from ancient red rock. The stone streets are lustrous with the passage of feet and shine in the moonlight; tomorrow they will glisten in the morning rain. After six days on the path into the mountains I finally rest at this inn. Here I can buy light: to write in this loft whilst the house sleeps, though a dutiful daughter dozes against the foot of the stair-ladder to serve me should I require sustenance. Frightened by my ugliness I summoned up my sweetest voice for her and soon there was a shy smile and downcast eyes. These are long nights for the village poor, but few here as poor as those whose shelters I sought on the path. Tonight I miss the steaming breath and ceaseless rustle of the animals brought indoors for warmth and security. My travelling robes are already filthy, but my body remains clean. As soon as I depart each night’s shelter I search for a stream to strip and wash thoroughly in the ice-cold water.

Dear sister, we have both been taught that the function of letter-writing is to unburden the mind of its melancholy thoughts in the form of elegant colours; its purpose to state one’s feelings without reserve. My thoughts turn constantly on whether I have it in me to ‘summon the recluse’. Have I the stamina, the patience, the resolve to seek out these elusive souls? Such thoughts induce fear rather than melancholy, fear of failure.

Already my journey into these mountains has crossed the season of late autumn into that of early winter. I am told the russet-red leaves and pink berries of the Ash, the deceptive Rowan and speckled-leafed Lace set the mountainside alight as the sun rises into a clear sky. For me clouds hang all day in the steep valleys, and so hide the heights where the solitary ones are believed to live. They alone see with the dawn the mountain peaks aflame   It is only in the very late afternoon that the sun melts the clouds, breaks through, and enlivens the landscape, turning it gold, then amber, and a final dull red before the blue blackness of dusk descends. Beyond this village my sources tell me there is real wilderness, and paths are few. I am to be my own guide.

You and I are so adept at the play of words. Our honoured father encouraged us, and as custodian of the Imperial Archives he knew how words could be arranged to both conceal and reveal; we played with the characters as other children played with coloured stones. So with the poems we call “Chao Yin”, let us play with verb “Chao” as both to seek and to summon. Chu Hsi, a courtier of that prince of Huai-nan, was sent into the wilderness to summon an errant official back to his post. His poems speak of terrors of the mountains, their ‘murky depths sending shivers of fright’ of ‘the caves of leopards and tigers’, and of the deep forest where ‘a man climbs from fear’. The poetic form uses “Chao” as in the ancient ceremonial song “Chao ***”. This calls on a dead person’s soul to re-enter the body, so ‘a summoning of the soul’. In those times such poems argued against the recluse, the withdrawn one, and sought a return. Today there is this feeling abroad that we need to consort with the recluse, to taste his solitude. Does the solitary life speak of the ineffable Way? Or is it in the search for the solitary one that a moment of enlightenment may present itself? As the saying goes: ‘to travel one must surely uncover truth’. In my bones I feel ready to invert this old poetic form. I must summon the spirit of the recluse out of the mountain fastness, but not seek his return. I need to touch his ways, see evidence of his mountain life, for a while to walk his paths breathing the same air. In my heart I expect nothing but his absence. I foresee I may reach his shelter and find his gate ajar, though the embers of the hearth still warm. He will be on some distant peak gathering herbs. If on a precipitous path I was to turn a corner and find him before me I have no words prepared. For the moment it seems I am exploring an idea through this summoning and seeking, not a living, breathing body.

Tomorrow I shall reconnoitre. My official hairpin and staff will command any audience, but for reliable answers, I am far from confident. There is always talk, rumours, sightings. The common people respect these beings as kindly mountain spirits and guardians of the wilderness. At the fork in a path, by the crossing place of a stream, corn, persimmons and millet are left for them. Such offerings will be replaced in time by the rarest mountain herbs, wild fruits, the skin of leopard or bear.

Your last letter spoke of ‘following my path into the mountains’. You have always defied convention, so it would be no surprise to find you here on my return, although I think your Lord would not sanction it. He would find such a request unfathomable. I am still perplexed at your situation, that you, the most homely of women should be so favoured, so adorned, and yet so free. It is that confidence you hold to yourself.  

To me, you have always been the essence of woman. What knowledge I possess of your kind comes from you alone. The infrequent gropings that occasionally present themselves I have only dismissed. An hour in your company smoothes and stills both soul and body. Your movements and gestures are always quiet and true, as are your woven words that sing in my memory on the path.

I read your letter
And savoured your words,
Your sorrowful songs of separation.
I can almost imagine your face before me
And I sigh and sob out of control.
When will we meet again
To amuse ourselves with prose and verse?
How can I tell you of my misery
Except with these woven words?

Have I remembered your poem correctly? I expected no response to my own lines on our separation. On the very morning of my departure your scroll arrived. I delayed to read it, delaying further to know your words: to carry them in my memory on my journey. In our respective verse we follow the way of tradition: the lonely woman in her room; the man travelling far from home. How many thousand poems describe this antithesis?

My life has always been sheltered by the expectations of scholarship, the requirements of official rank, and more recently acclaim due to my songs and poems. This journey begins a new page, as a seeker and summoner. Follow my path deeper into the mountains, be at my side when I rest, calm my fear of the heights and the depths of dark ravines, reveal to me the words to paint the scene. Know that I share with you everything that is to come, without reservation.

Remember the words of Lun Yu: ‘The good man delights in mountains. The wise man delights in water’. In these mountains the sound of water is present everywhere.

A stony spring rinses bits of jade
Minnows now and then emerge, and disappear.
Here what need of my silk-strung gujin? –
The mountain water has its own crystal song.

Your brother Zuo Si

Now, the dau,
that idea, first bubble we be in,
and the final thought
we pay attention to,

a-priori, is a popular phrase on the pundit trail,
first any ever once,
enfolding now, augmented mortal
appropriation of the spirit
dau, the truth in life,
being.

Thinking is reading my mind.
You have the knack, read,
wiser minds have left letters locked in glyphs
of tradition,
-flash k;ab;alla; wink blink image of the map

this not terrain mortals trod, this is where
Shakespeare and Browning smoke ****
with me and Lady Wei, as seen
from a smoky hut
leaning on granite decomposing as I write,

this came to the surface, as a we, reader/writer
we may think in one
mind, while doing in another, and becoming
something else, in a third,

but it does not stop there, I hear in my realm,
Everest Pax, a child named
in a happy state of mind,
by my daughter,
at whose marriage, I broke the rule,
I made a pact,
with my son-in-law
using my own scruples,
stretched to threads of finest wire,
through holes but one photon wide,
one bit serial thought, off set by a function
forming
matter in states where nothing has mattered,
for a long, long time,
then today
- dao, kapow
the link to how often I proclaimed, I,
have always, and do now
take the easy way,
and that, they say,
is cheating. Wu wu boo who wu wei is
as water in our once crossed rivers, in the median,

between the freeways…

As I remarked early on this trek to find your name
in the book of my life, knowing
readers of this line, even, perhaps,
hearers, some day,
knowing tasted good, not knowing tastes evil as hell.
You exist in the book of my life as a reoccuring
character, who may be formed from early
childhood scruple implants,
Ossie Davis, look you in the eye, say
Do the right thing.

… which brings us, flop, stop, 2021 - three brothers
jonesing screens- Evvy screaming, he is five,
on no screen Sunday, a family tradition
in its first iteration, set by the mother
reinforced by the father, ignored
by Grandpa who is doing a show with Lady Wei,
on the experience
of Yang His, who received a vision from Lady Wei,
while Pine Valley high above the maddened crowd,

I hear it said, His had that Habakkuk habit, wu wei,
lady, did you lead me, write the vision, make it plain,
or is this all just
pretend, knowing is a given, one taste, concentrate

okeh, we on wu wei now, read and watch,
think and see,
what if this was happening to me, and I have
hyper-text such as no manuscript
on earth ever had,
no ink needed,
no ashes of prayers in the tea,
I used Pine Valley honey and flowers from a herm-kush
take a l'taste,
hear this, I think, I say

say, have you ever used Dragon Naturally Speaking?

On mute. If we think in Wade-Giles, and write in Pinyin,
- we can pass any shibbolethic judges of twang
and we got this Tuvan singer,
from New York City, a place he never saw

the glass harmonica can hold the high notes,
and we can channel the blind throat singer to hold down
the baser notes of life in soil creation,
till the hard rows, right,
sow the finest seed,
available, by chance, legally blind, where I went into total
last days, wait and see, here is here I presupposed
wu wei, no intervention
you came, now see,
this is where I live when in my right mind.
Now, I can make up my mind on matters of the wish,
last wish
from the magic golden carp in the castle mote,
I caught a thought in Ape and Essence,
and may have wished a bogus wish to live,
among the words that I redeem worth my use
-to form a more perfect union
-with my own heart's desire to be the best I may imagine,
given the tools fit for the perfectly happy, lazy old man,

who giggles at the idea of pulling down imaginations
that exalt themselves as institutes of authorized knowns.
Scratch my ear.
rethink, how Swedenbord did not doubt,
that old dude, just kept dippin' n' scribblin angels
who love to wrestle with scriptures gone pointy crown
shape burr, itches, crave, yes, the wish of which, witches mix
doubt is the art of balance between lines of several minds,
redo, redone, redo, redone, soon, we laugh
and walk away,
lady Wei, and I
leave His, making all this plain to the degree,
of telling history, I thought this, so real, it seems still
as real as any angel duty ever…
Yang His says:
Lady Wei, looks to me and said to me unspeakable things.
This is confusion, she let me know with
a single drop of black,

ashes of talismans burned in vain, never, to my knowledge
written in vain,
think once a godly thought, as used to say, just now,
think that as a practice,
this is that exercise
unto godliness.

First, gnoshit, attain the Yang His state of cannabis-bliss.

Or go on lying about what I think we know
already, this is
that earth,

where happy people think happy thoughts and others
find that maddening,

and Lady Wei laughs with me, we know the traits we give
to those who chose on any given day

to put on a mind made from words alone,
and listen.


----------------- author's note:
Taoism: An Essential Guide by Eva Wong, these lines occur
while listening to Chapter Four
The Shang-ch’ing texts tell us that Yang Hsi received a vision
from Lady Wei (who had become an immortal)
and then “wrote” the scriptures
under the influence of a cannabis-induced trance.

Shepherd. That cry's from the first cuckoo of the year.
I wished before it ceased.
Goatherd. Nor bird nor beast
Could make me wish for anything this day,
Being old, but that the old alone might die,
And that would be against God's providence.
Let the young wish.  But what has brought you here?
Never until this moment have we met
Where my goats browse on the scarce grass or leap
From stone to Stone.
Shepherd. I am looking for strayed sheep;
Something has troubled me and in my rrouble
I let them stray.  I thought of rhyme alone,
For rhme can beat a measure out of trouble
And make the daylight sweet once more; but when
I had driven every rhyme into its Place
The sheep had gone from theirs.
Goatherd. I know right well
What turned so good a shepherd from his charge.
Shepherd. He that was best in every country sport
And every country craft, and of us all
Most courteous to slow age and hasty youth,
Is dead.
Goatherd. The boy that brings my griddle-cake
Brought the bare news.
Shepherd. He had thrown the crook away
And died in the great war beyond the sea.
Goatherd. He had often played his pipes among my hills,
And when he played it was their loneliness,
The exultation of their stone, that died
Under his fingers.
Shepherd. I had it from his mother,
And his own flock was browsing at the door.
Goatherd. How does she bear her grief? There is not a
shepherd
But grows more gentle when he speaks her name,
Remembering kindness done, and how can I,
That found when I had neither goat nor grazing
New welcome and old wisdom at her fire
Till winter blasts were gone, but speak of her
Even before his children and his wife?
Shepherd. She goes about her house ***** and calm
Between the pantry and the linen-chest,
Or else at meadow or at grazing overlooks
Her labouring men, as though her darling lived,
But for her grandson now; there is no change
But such as I have Seen upon her face
Watching our shepherd sports at harvest-time
When her son's turn was over.
Goatherd. Sing your song.
I too have rhymed my reveries, but youth
Is hot to show whatever it has found,
And till that's done can neither work nor wait.
Old goatherds and old goats, if in all else
Youth can excel them in accomplishment,
Are learned in waiting.
Shepherd. You cannot but have seen
That he alone had gathered up no gear,
Set carpenters to work on no wide table,
On no long bench nor lofty milking-shed
As others will, when first they take possession,
But left the house as in his father's time
As though he knew himself, as it were, a cuckoo,
No settled man.  And now that he is gone
There's nothing of him left but half a score
Of sorrowful, austere, sweet, lofty pipe tunes.
Goatherd. You have put the thought in rhyme.
Shepherd. I worked all day,
And when 'twas done so little had I done
That maybe "I am sorry' in plain prose
Had Sounded better to your mountain fancy.
[He sings.]
"Like the speckled bird that steers
Thousands of leagues oversea,
And runs or a while half-flies
On his yellow legs through our meadows.
He stayed for a while; and we
Had scarcely accustomed our ears
To his speech at the break of day,
Had scarcely accustomed our eyes
To his shape at the rinsing-pool
Among the evening shadows,
When he vanished from ears and eyes.
I might have wished on the day
He came, but man is a fool.'
Goatherd. You sing as always of the natural life,
And I that made like music in my youth
Hearing it now have sighed for that young man
And certain lost companions of my own.
Shepherd. They say that on your barren mountain ridge
You have measured out the road that the soul treads
When it has vanished from our natural eyes;
That you have talked with apparitions.
Goatherd. Indeed
My daily thoughts since the first stupor of youth
Have found the path my goats' feet cannot find.
Shepherd. Sing, for it may be that your thoughts have
plucked
Some medicable herb to make our grief
Less bitter.
Goatherd. They have brought me from that ridge
Seed-pods and flowers that are not all wild poppy.
[Sings.]
"He grows younger every second
That were all his birthdays reckoned
Much too solemn seemed;
Because of what he had dreamed,
Or the ambitions that he served,
Much too solemn and reserved.
Jaunting, journeying
To his own dayspring,
He unpacks the loaded pern
Of all 'twas pain or joy to learn,
Of all that he had made.
The outrageous war shall fade;
At some old winding whitethorn root
He'll practise on the shepherd's flute,
Or on the close-cropped grass
Court his shepherd lass,
Or put his heart into some game
Till daytime, playtime seem the same;
Knowledge he shall unwind
Through victories of the mind,
Till, clambering at the cradle-side,
He dreams himself hsi mother's pride,
All knowledge lost in trance
Of sweeter ignorance.'
Shepherd. When I have shut these ewes and this old ram
Into the fold, we'll to the woods and there
Cut out our rhymes on strips of new-torn bark
But put no name and leave them at her door.
To know the mountain and the valley have grieved
May be a quiet thought to wife and mother,
And children when they spring up shoulder-high.

Shepherd. That cry's from the first cuckoo of the year.
I wished before it ceased.

Goatherd.              Nor bird nor beast
Could make me wish for anything this day,
Being old, but that the old alone might die,
And that would be against God's providence.
Let the young wish.  But what has brought you here?
Never until this moment have we met
Where my goats browse on the scarce grass or leap
From stone to Stone.

Shepherd.         I am looking for strayed sheep;
Something has troubled me and in my rrouble
I let them stray.  I thought of rhyme alone,
For rhme can beat a measure out of trouble
And make the daylight sweet once more; but when
I had driven every rhyme into its Place
The sheep had gone from theirs.

Goatherd.                   I know right well
What turned so good a shepherd from his charge.

Shepherd. He that was best in every country sport
And every country craft, and of us all
Most courteous to slow age and hasty youth,
Is dead.

Goatherd. The boy that brings my griddle-cake
Brought the bare news.

Shepherd. He had thrown the crook away
And died in the great war beyond the sea.

Goatherd. He had often played his pipes among my hills,
And when he played it was their loneliness,
The exultation of their stone, that died
Under his fingers.

Shepherd.    I had it from his mother,
And his own flock was browsing at the door.

Goatherd. How does she bear her grief? There is not a
     shepherd
But grows more gentle when he speaks her name,
Remembering kindness done, and how can I,
That found when I had neither goat nor grazing
New welcome and old wisdom at her fire
Till winter blasts were gone, but speak of her
Even before his children and his wife?

Shepherd. She goes about her house ***** and calm
Between the pantry and the linen-chest,
Or else at meadow or at grazing overlooks
Her labouring men, as though her darling lived,
But for her grandson now; there is no change
But such as I have Seen upon her face
Watching our shepherd sports at harvest-time
When her son's turn was over.

Goatherd.              Sing your song.
I too have rhymed my reveries, but youth
Is hot to show whatever it has found,
And till that's done can neither work nor wait.
Old goatherds and old goats, if in all else
Youth can excel them in accomplishment,
Are learned in waiting.

Shepherd. You cannot but have seen
That he alone had gathered up no gear,
Set carpenters to work on no wide table,
On no long bench nor lofty milking-shed
As others will, when first they take possession,
But left the house as in his father's time
As though he knew himself, as it were, a cuckoo,
No settled man.  And now that he is gone
There's nothing of him left but half a score
Of sorrowful, austere, sweet, lofty pipe tunes.

Goatherd. You have put the thought in rhyme.

Shepherd.              I worked all day,
And when 'twas done so little had I done
That maybe "I am sorry' in plain prose
Had Sounded better to your mountain fancy.

                              [He sings.]

"Like the speckled bird that steers
Thousands of leagues oversea,
And runs or a while half-flies
On his yellow legs through our meadows.
He stayed for a while; and we
Had scarcely accustomed our ears
To his speech at the break of day,
Had scarcely accustomed our eyes
To his shape at the rinsing-pool
Among the evening shadows,
When he vanished from ears and eyes.
I might have wished on the day
He came, but man is a fool.'

Goatherd. You sing as always of the natural life,
And I that made like music in my youth
Hearing it now have sighed for that young man
And certain lost companions of my own.

Shepherd. They say that on your barren mountain ridge
You have measured out the road that the soul treads
When it has vanished from our natural eyes;
That you have talked with apparitions.

Goatherd.                        Indeed
My daily thoughts since the first stupor of youth
Have found the path my goats' feet cannot find.

Shepherd. Sing, for it may be that your thoughts have
     plucked
Some medicable herb to make our grief
Less bitter.

Goatherd.    They have brought me from that ridge
Seed-pods and flowers that are not all wild poppy.

                              [Sings.]

"He grows younger every second
That were all his birthdays reckoned
Much too solemn seemed;
Because of what he had dreamed,
Or the ambitions that he served,
Much too solemn and reserved.
Jaunting, journeying
To his own dayspring,
He unpacks the loaded pern
Of all 'twas pain or joy to learn,
Of all that he had made.
The outrageous war shall fade;
At some old winding whitethorn root
He'll practise on the shepherd's flute,
Or on the close-cropped grass
Court his shepherd lass,
Or put his heart into some game
Till daytime, playtime seem the same;
Knowledge he shall unwind
Through victories of the mind,
Till, clambering at the cradle-side,
He dreams himself hsi mother's pride,
All knowledge lost in trance
Of sweeter ignorance.'

Shepherd. When I have shut these ewes and this old ram
Into the fold, we'll to the woods and there
Cut out our rhymes on strips of new-torn bark
But put no name and leave them at her door.
To know the mountain and the valley have grieved
May be a quiet thought to wife and mother,
And children when they spring up shoulder-high.

To the tune of "Rinsing Silk Stream"

Saddened by the dying spring, I am too weary
to rearrange my hair.
Plum flowers, newly fallen, drift about the courtyard
in the evening wind.
The moon looks pale and light clouds float
to and fro.

Incense lies idle in the jade duck-shaped burner.
The cherry-red bed-curtain is drawn close,
concealing its tassels.
Can Tung-Hsi's horn still ward off the cold?