Who says that poets love the mountains?
Mountains, mountains---
I'm tired of writing about them!
Thousands of peaks and thousands of ranges
seem to throw themselves at me.
I have to rest three hours for each hour of climbing.
When your desk is piled high
Where can you put another book?
When your stomach is full,
How can you go on eating?
I have no use for more green slopes
and mountain mists---
I'll wrap them in a package
and send them to my city friends.
YANG WAN-LI "AT AN-LE TEMPLE"
(Trans.
Jonathan Chaves)