Noticing the radically different translations of the poems of the Buddhist and Taoist hermit poets, such as those of Li Po (701-762), I’ve begun to do my own. I take the basic text of the scholars of these works — Kenneth Rexroth, David Hinton, Red Pine (Bill Porter), Stephen Mitchell, Arthur Waley and Burton Watson among others — and offer my take.

I write the poem, inspired by their words, that means most to me.

I walk these mountains
Alive, alone, in love with life.
Strange to some, yes
I don't try to explain
I can't explain
The feelings I have here
In this land of no men
Of mountain ranges and rivers.
My mind empty, my heart free.

      - Li Po, Roderick MacIver translation.

Here’s the Kenneth Rexroth translation:

You ask
why I perch
on a jade green mountain.
I laugh
but say nothing
my heart
free
like a peach blossom
in the flowing stream
going by
in the depths
in another world
not among men.
- Li Po, Kenneth Rexroth translation. One of the books Rexroth claimed to have translated was The Love Poems of Marichiko. It was later revealed that he made them all up, beautiful though they are. There were no love poems of Marichiko in Japanese to translate because there was no Marichiko. That gives me artistic license.