湖畔插花

寒煙

湖畔憑眼眺
薄霧浮遠礁
天水渾無界
野花岩隙搖
黃蘚塗赭石
玉苔競風騷
萋萋百草雜
灼灼新葉俏
有花紅勝萱
婷婷且裊裊
細瓣迸星火
燦然岩間笑
妙哉無名株
堪為缽中寶
豐瘦三兩支
高矮勿須挑
參差當中立
雪菊俸仙瑤
晶缽浴纖足
玄石攬細腰
草籽帳輕紗
柏針織睡袍
清芳潤歌喉
微波盪琴簫
風吹衣裙舞
潮湧長發飄
忴花不耐渴
清水漫石澆
移缽案正中
讚嘆滿堂高
柔艷照頑石
堅韌映妖嬈

Flower Arrangement: Beside the Lake

Translated by Tim Bushnell

Beside the lake
Far off shore, a jagged trail of rocks partly shrouded
in mist
Water and sky fused
Nearby, wildflowers gently sway between the rocks
Scattered lichen in bright jade and bursts of orange
Grasses of many statures and hues
Shrubs bristling with new tips, tender, in bright green
with rosy flushes

A flower of a kind so engrossingly, luminescently red 
shading to deep orange and just to yellow in the center
and almost to black at its edge
Each slender petal a lick of fire
Its stem a gracefully curved, yet perfectly erect spine
The whole, a smiling grace deftly surpassing the rocks 
from which it emerges
A wild beauty that might live and pass unnoticed
But you will be my treasure

I pluck several of you, choosing no individual
Some in full flower, some still in bud,
tall, short, facing this way and that
A full and random spectrum of your aspects gathered for the center
With an aura of white flowers floating at your waist
above an embroidery of spruce needles
And all about and through,
tiny, quavering grains of feathered grasses hanging in a mist
A crystal bowl to bathe your feet
and sturdy rocks nestled for your support
Your fragrance raises a song in my throat
My skirt dances in the wind
and my hair is one with the waves

But are you suffering in my gathering and contemplation?
I pour water over the rocks and it pools below, slaking your thirst
I carry you inside to your place of honor at the table
And all now startle in delight giving welcome and praise

Such bright beauty against the iron dark rocks
Such delicacy and verve in this place where bitterness yields 
only tentatively
This is strength
And this is beauty