My thatched cottage stands
just west of Thousand Mile Bridge
this Hundred Flower Stream
would please as any hermit fisherman
bamboo sways in the wind
graceful as any court beauty
rain makes the lotus flowers
even more red and fragrant
but I no longer hear from friends
who live on princely salaries
my children are always hungry
with pale and famished faces
does a madman frow more happy
before he dies in the gutter?
I laugh at myself－a madman
growing older, growing madder.