Blazing summer days: no force could bring them back.
Clouds suddenly rising off the river, lovely, so lovely,
ducks leave a bridge's shadow, paddling into fine rain,
and butterflies flutter out, frolicking in field breezes.
The willow won't survive nights and days much longer,
and waterlilies will only open two or three more times.
If the changing sights of a single year haunt your eye,
why wonder that a palace lake is ash among the kalpas ?
Lu Yu
'Light Rain' from 'Mountain Home: The wilderness poetry of ancient China', translated by David Hinton.
