My pack lighter than ever,
the season late,
I haul myself over headlands
to Toleak Point. Near my ocean camp,
cow parsnip that danced
in spring breezes has gone
to seed, its leaves slug-nibbled.
Wild lily of the valley, a once-green carpet,
has grown yellow and wan.
Yet listen as the north wind rustles
the parsnip’s dry pods.
Lower your eyes
to the lily’s quiet fruit—tiny green planets
with maroon continents.
(No. 71 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Toleak Point lies south of La Push on the Olympic wilderness coast in northwest Washington State. I have regularly visited this coastline for many years, usually backpacking alone.
As the Heart Sutra clarifies, there is “no old age and death, and also no ending of old age and death.” Just so.
(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)
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