I have read several of David Hinton’s translations of Chinese classics, but I have never read any of his personal poetry until Desert: Poems. Though I was originally attracted by his knowledge of Chinese literature, I was also attracted by the title because I spent a year and a half at Ft. Irwin in the Mojave Desert. It didn’t take long to realize, though, that the desert meant something entirely different to Hinton than it did to me when I was stationed at Fort Irwin. His view is, however, closer to how I have felt about the desert since retiring. The West’s high deserts are one of the few places left where you can find solitude and can (almost) escape Civilization. I’ve become fond of parking my “camper” out in the middle of nowhere and spending the day doing nothing but watching wildlife, feeling the shifting light, and soaking in the silence.
For Hinton, the desert seems to take the place of the Mountains favored by Chinese hermit sages. Its solitude provides the ideal place for meditation, a place to contemplate man’s nature and his relationship to nature. This becomes quite clear in early poems like :
Empty mind
is amirror gazing out, theold masters say. It
seems easy
enough. But all
nightlong, stars shimmer
light-years
deep in my gaze. Whocould be that
vast? And at dawn
I’m sure
it’s not me
mirroring
desert, but wide
open desert
mirroring whatever
it is
I am.
I’ll admit my understanding of “empty mind” is nebulous at best, but a quick search of the internet revealed this definition which seems relevant here: “The still mind of the sage is the mirror of heaven and earth, the glass of all things. Vacancy, stillness, placidity, tastelessness, quietude, silence, and non-action – this is the level of heaven and earth, and the perfection of the Tao and its characteristics.” – Chuang-tzu (translated by Legge)
Hilton’s “modernity” seems to slip into the poem with the ironical line “It/ seems easy/ enough” because anyone who has meditated knows that it is anything but “easy” to attain empty mind — as exemplified in the rest of the poem. Whose mind is empty enough to mirror the stars? Is Nature a reflection of us, or are we Nature’s reflection?
Another recurring theme in Desert Poems is the inadequacy of words, an idea that, I must admit, has crossed my mind a lot lately, especially when meditating or trying to write a post. I suspect that I turned to photographs because I could never describe in words the feelings I got from hiking.
I wish I
could say thisdesert to you. But I
cannot say
in words
what I am, only
what I
am not, what
occurs beyond me
and is
therefore knowable . It’s
beautiful here: wide
-open, empty.Come with me. There is
so much
less
to say here.