Observations placeholder
Po Chu-I - Winter night
Identifier
015041
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
WINTER NIGHT
Those I love scattered away poor
and far too sick for friendly visits,
I’m shut up inside, no one in sight.
Lying in this village study alone,
the wick cold and lamp-flame dark,
wide-open drapes torn and tattered,
I listen as the snow begins to fall
again, that hiss outside the window.
Older now, sleeping less and less,
I get up in the night and sit intent,
mind utterly forgotten. How else
can I get past such isolated silence?
Body visiting this world steadfast,
mind abandoned to change limitless:
it’s been like this four years now,
one thousand three hundred nights.