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| Chai Tao (779-843 CE.) |
To the Poet-Monk in Mountains
after Chia Tao's "Upon Finishing A Poem"
Lan Su Chinese Garden—Portland, Oregon
Beneath a bamboo canopy
still wet with last night’s rain
you pen your verses.
Cascading drops splash rhythms
onto your rooftop. Flowing words
stream couplets down the page.
Secluded as a bird by forests and hills,
your poems nevertheless, fly far.
Nowadays, who, if anyone,
has risen to the heights
of understanding a life like yours,
devoted solely to solitude
and poetry?
Who but a fellow poet
would understand why
your eyes fill with tears
when you first read aloud
the two lines that, together,
took you three years to complete?
Why you recite your
most heartfelt stanzas
only to mountains
and streams.
Chia Tao: a Ch'an monk turned poet who lived from 779-843 CE.
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| Daniel Skach-Mills |
A 2026 Pushcart Prize nominee, Daniel Skach-Mills’s poetry is forthcoming in The Pensive Journal and Wild Roof Review. His book, The Hut Beneath the Pine: Tea Poems, was a 2012 Oregon Book Award finalist. A former Trappist monk, Daniel lives with his husband in Portland, Oregon, where he served for 15 years as a docent at Lan Su Chinese Garden. He was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer in 2024.
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