On a Snowless Day, a Seven-Character Regulated Verse: Snowland

2007/12/8 10:16:40

Apologies — coming online to check, I see that yesterday's posts, which I repeatedly tried and failed to publish, have all appeared now. Please bear with it; Sina only has issues N times a year, nothing unforgivable.

In a season that should be filled with heavy snowfall, humanity's misdeeds have chased away every trace of snow. Better hurry and soak in hot springs — give it N years and even hot springs will be man-made. What a brave new world that will be.

On these snowless days, I can only casually compose a regulated verse to satisfy the craving. Could it be that in another N years, we'll have to experience snow only through words and images?

Snowland

Chán Zhōng Shuō Chán

Cold clouds cluster round ten thousand peaks
Through aeons, wild winds and fierce snows reign
A silver sea upends the sky, overturns the earth
Jade dragons swallow stars, devour constellations unseen
Past, present, future severed — ten directions still
Mind, thought, and consciousness lost, drowned in the void
One spark of ice-borne fire flows without end
A thousand grindings, a hundred forgings — what is gained?