I.
Among the flowers a drink of wine.
I sit alone without a friend.
So I invite the moon,
Then see my shadow, make us three.
The moon cant know how to drink,
Since just my shadow drinks with me.
The moon brought shadow along
To keep me silent company.
Joy should reflect the season.
I sing. That makes the Moon reel.
Get up. Make my shadow sway.
While Im here lets celebrate.
When Im drunk each seek the Way,
Tie ourselves to Eternal Journeys,
Swear to meet again in the Milky Way.
II
If the heavens were not in love with wine,
Thered be no Wine Star in the sky.
And if earth wasnt always drinking,
Thered be nowhere called Wine Spring.
Ive heard that pure wine makes the Sage.
Even the cloudy makes us wise.
If even the wise get there through drink,
Whats the point of True Religions?
Three times and I understand the Way,
Six and Im one again with Nature.
Only the things we know when were drunk
Can never be expressed when were sober.
III
Third month in Chang-an city,
Knee-deep in a thousand fallen flowers.
Alone in Spring who can stand this sadness?
Or sober see transient things like these?
Long life or short, rich or poor,
Our destinys determined by the world.
But drinking makes us one with life and death,
The Myriad Things we can barely fathom.
Drunk, Heaven and Earth are gone.
Stilled, I clutch my lonely pillow.
Forgetting that the Self exists,
That is the minds greatest joy.
