Nguyen Trai
Translated from the Vietnamese by Nguyen Ngoc Bich with Burton Raffel and W. S. Merwin
A bamboo hut and a plum tree bower—
That's where I spend my days, far from the world's talk.
For meals, only some pickled cabbage,
But I've never cared for the life of damask and silk.
There's a pool of water for watching the moon,
and land to plow into flowerbeds.
Sometimes I feel inspired on snowy nights—
That's when I write my best poems, and sing.