Once, Han-Shan fondly remembers,
He was considered handsome enough
To carry yellow parasols for great
Officials at the far away capital,
And, what was better, allowed to post
One of his poems in the best part of town.
This was especially rewarding on holidays
When crowds followed in the wake
Of the magisterial procession,
Stopping to admire his haiku on the way,
And pointing him out with applause.
And he was indeed handsome:
Forehead as smooth as a garden leaf,
Eyes dark as charcoal,
Ears taut and pink as fanshells
Under hair the color of government ink.
Most proudly, he recalls the mouth,
Firm and curved as a petal
From the imperial plum.
And O the nose rising like a young tower
On a palace meadow, and the wondrous sleek
Symmetry of a well-trimmed beard.
No wonder he had caught the emperor’s eye!
Here, on Exile Mountain, he lives on a road
No one uses, and when he tacks a poem
To his broken gate, it flutters
Unread in the wind.
His temples are veined now like spice melons,
Eyes wan as chestnuts long out of husk,
Ears like small wilted cabbages.
And O the nose pitted as honeystone,
Mouth squashed as mashed mulberries,
Beard scragged as winter-blown clover.
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