Giữa những cây liễu nở hoa,
chúng ta kiềm ngựa lại;
khi chia tay, chúng ta tự do
uống tất cả những thứ rượu mình muốn.
Nhưng gió mùa xuân
vẫn từ từ thổi về phương bắc;
mây và ngỗng trời
không bay về phương nam.
Ngày mai
là ngày đầu tiên – tháng thứ ba của năm
rồi!
Chạm roi vào con ngựa gầy và đi
vào màu sắc của hoàng hôn;
sương mù đang bốc lên
trên những đỉnh núi.
MEMENTO ON THE DEPARTURE
OF A FRIEND FROM YEH,
LAST DAY OF THE SECOND MOON
Translations by Mike O’Connor In: The Clouds Should Know Me By Now: Buddhist Poet Monks of China Wisdom Publications, 1998, pp. 11-42.
In flowering willows,
we rein in our horses;
at parting, we are free
to drink all the wine we desire.
But the winds of spring
sweep slowly north;
clouds and wild geese
do not fly south.
Tomorrow
dawns the first—
already the third
month of the year!
Touch whip to lean horse and go
into the colors of dusk;
mist is rising
on far peaks.
Jia Dao [779-843] CHIA TAO WAS A BUDDHIST POET of the Middle T’ang dynasty. Born into an impoverished family near today’s Beijing, he became a Ch’an (Zen) monk early in his youth, with the religious name Wupen. While scant biographical detail of his monastic days exists, his official biography does note that upon arriving at the Eastern Capital, Lo-yang, Chia Tao wrote a poem protesting a curfew forbidding monks to go out after noon. The poem caught the sympathetic eye of the eminent Confucian poet Han Yu (768–824) and led to the latter becoming Chia Tao’s poetry mentor.
Lê Vĩnh Tài, the poet and translator born in 1966 in Buon Ma Thuot, Daklak, Vietnam. The retired doctor is still a resident of the Western Highlands and a businessman in Buon Ma Thuot.
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm 
Thank you for leaving us this post about CHIA TAO, very interesting
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What an exquisite piece. I loved this intense connection to nature. The poet’s life as a monk and the rule you speak of must have been awful. Thank you so much for this share. Blessings
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Thank you. Jia Dao is a poet I enjoy studying. I am glad we both enjoy reading him.
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Wow! i have impressed reading this poem. really have magic in your writing
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Thank you.
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