Li Po: Long after we’re gone, peace remains.
The deep peace
Found on mountaintops
As night arrives
Another in the endless cycle
Of dark and light.
Long before I came here to sit
And long, long after we’re gone
The deep peace of mountaintops remains.
- Li Po (701-762), Zen Mountain Journal translation. This poem belongs to the tradition of Chinese shan shui (mountain-water) verse — poetry that does not describe nature so much as dissolve into it, leaving the reader in the presence of something older than thought.
Li Po, one of China's greatest poets, wandered the mountains and rivers of Tang Dynasty China, writing verses infused with Taoist reverence for nature's quiet and the fleeting beauty of human life. His poetry invites us to sit with the eternal peace that mountains hold—a peace indifferent to our coming and going.
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