You find a flower half-buried in leaves,
And in your eye its very fate resides.
Loving beauty, you caress the bloom;
Soon enough, you’ll sweep petals from the floor.
Terrible to love the lovely so,
To count your own years, to say “I’m old,”
To see a flower half-buried in leaves
And come face to face with what you are.
— Han Shan, hermit and poet of the T’ang Dynasty (618 – 906 C.E.)
Translated by Peter Stambler Cold Mountain Buddhas