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Tag Archives: Li Po

Drinking with a Hermit Friend in the Mountains

Li Po wrote this short poem about companionship. To be a companion is to literally share one’s bread people journey together. In this case, it is water they are sharing, although it could be something stronger.

When we travel with each other, it is a time to share: converse, drink, food, and nourish each other. We see the other person as a person with flaws and beauty. It is in those moments we are mindful of the other and who they are as a person. Perhaps in their imperfections we discover perfection.

Kathy and I joke with each other as we eat. We offer each other extra napkins and say, “I’ve seen you eat before.”

Together, we drink: two mountain flowers,
A cup, a cup, and then, to begin again at the
beginning, another cup!
I’m drunk, would sleep . . . you’d better go.
Tomorrow, come again, with your lute, if you
This was a path Kathy and I walked in Glacier National Park. We took a boat down the lake, crossed into Montana, and, because we had our passports, hiked into a lake several miles from the boat launch.

Chuang Tzu And The Butterfly



Chuang Tzu in dream became a butterfly,
And the butterfly became Chuang Tzu at waking.
Which was the real—the butterfly or the man ?
Who can tell the end of the endless changes of things?
The water that flows into the depth of the distant sea
Returns anon to the shallows of a transparent stream.
Was once the Prince of the East Hill.
So must rank and riches vanish.

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