The Write Sisters: Poetry Friday–“In an Abandoned Garden”

From: THE WRITE SISTERS
http://thewritesisters.blogspot.com/2012/09/poetry-friday-in-abandoned-garden.html
September 14, 2012 at 12:01AM

Wouldn’t you love to have the day off today to ramble through a garden and then sit for a while to watch and listen as summer hurries toward its inevitable end? Or maybe, to simply sit and read a book? If you can’t, let this poem stand in for you:

In an Abandoned Garden
by Han-Shan, translated by Burton Watson

My house is at the foot of the green cliff,
My garden, a jumble of weeds I no longer bother to mow.
New vines dangle in twisted strands
Over old rocks rising steep and high.
Monkeys make off with the mountain fruits,
The white heron crams his bill with fish from the pond,
While I, with a book or two of the immortals,
Read under the trees–mumble, mumble.

Ha! Wasn’t the “mumble, mumble” a surprise!

There’s a Round-Up being held at Random Noodling, hosted by yours truly. See you over there!

Arundel Castle (1905) picture courtesy Library of Congress. It’s not a Chinese garden, and there are no monkeys, but I can well imagine a white heron, and a reader, can’t you?

–Diane