Friday Night Poetry

I would rather be hiking in the mountains than writing about the worst president in our nation's history. Here's a Chinese poet with similar feelings who was born more than 1,600 years ago (translation by Kenneth Rexroth with two or three minor changes).


I Return to the Place I Was Born


From my youth up I never liked the city.
I never forgot the mountains where I was born.
The world caught me and harnessed me.
And drove me through dust, twenty years away from home.
Migratory birds return to the same tree.
Fish find their way back to the pools where they were hatched.
I have been over the whole country,
And have come back at last to the garden of my childhood.
My farm is only five acres.
The farm house has two or three rooms.
Elms and willows shade the back garden.
Peach trees stand by the front door.
The village is out of sight.
You can hear dogs bark in the alleys,
And cocks crow in the mulberry trees.
When you come through the gate into the court
You will find no dust or mess.
Peace and quiet in every room.
I am content to stay here the rest of my life.
At last I have found my self.


—Tao Chien