Night Verses, A Ghost in Ba Gorge

[lnhammer]

In 679, a person mooring his boat for the night in Ba Gorge heard a poem chanted with extreme intensity, both impassioned and sorrowful. It was like this throughout the night, reciting its verses several tens of times. The person investigated (where the sound was from), and not only was there no boat but just a bare mountain with water springing from its rocks, disappearing into a secluded gorge, and in the place where the poem was chanted, there was a single skeleton.

The autumn paths fill up with yellow leaves.
Cold ravages the bare roots of the grasses.
An ape’s voice cries out once, then is cut off.
A traveler’s tears make overlapping stains.

夜吟
作者：巴峡鬼
〈调露中，有人巴峡夜泊舟，闻咏诗声甚厉，激昂而悲，如是通宵，凡吟数十遍。访之，更无舟船，但空山石泉，溪谷幽绝，咏诗处有人骨一具。〉
秋径填黄叶，
寒摧露草根。
猿声一叫断，
客泪数重痕。

Ba is an old name for eastern Sichuan/Chongqing, and Ba Gorge can be any of the Three Gorges of the Yangzi, especially the uppermost, Qutang, or a tributary of same.

---L.

Comments

[sartorias]

Lines 1-3 evocative, vivid, then we get to the tears. Though I like the image oof the stains overlapping

[lnhammer]

And then, as you say, we get the tears. The overlapping stains is a non-standard touch, but it was going so well till the tears showed up.

[mekare]

Oh spooky!

[lnhammer]

And it was only one skelly!