View Off Wilderness Rocks Trail in the Santa Catalina Mountains (08/08/14) — Image by kenne
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In a tangle of cliffs, I chose a place –
Bird paths, but no trails for me.
What’s beyond the yard?
White clouds clinging to vague rocks.
Now I’ve lived here – how many years –
Again and again, spring and winter pass.
Go tell families with silverware and cars
“What’s the use of all that noise and money?”
— Han-shan, Cold Mountain Poems Translated by Gary Snyder
Pusch Ridge Wilderness, Santa Catalina Mountains — Photo-Artistry by kenne
— Han-shan
The Path to His Mountain Place — Photo-Artistry by kenne
The path to Han-shan’s place is laughable,
A path, but no sign of cart or horse.
Converging gorges — hard to trace the twists
Jumbled cliffs — unbelievably rugged.
A thousand grasses bend with dew,
A hill of pines hums in the wind.
And now I’ve lost the shortcut home,
Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?
— Gary Snyder
Snow On The Santa Catalina Mountains On December 26th — Images by kenne
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— from Han Shan’s Cold Mountain Poems, translation by Gary Snyder
Desert Chicory on Mt. Lemmon — Image by kenne
One of my favorite books of poetry is Riprap and the Cold Mountain Poems, by Gary Snyder.
The book includes Snyder’s translations of Han-shan’s Cold Mountain Poems. Han-shan was both a man and a mountain, a mountain madman in an old line of ragged hermits. He lived at a place called Cold Mountain, a poor poet having a crazy character. He wrote poems that were rough and fresh, and when he wrote about Cold Mountain, he means himself, his home, his state of mind.
— kenne
Gary Snyder reading “I settled at Cold Mountain long ago . . .”
