Tracks in the Snow: A Poem of the Sung Dynasty

I have my Mandarin-speaking colleague, Peter Lin, to thank for a lovely image from classical Chinese poetry. The poem (written during the Sung dynasty, that is, around ad 1100) advises that in our life on earth we're like wild geese that land for a moment on the snow, and then leaving only their footprints fly away…

The poem is in the form of a letter from the poet, Su Tung P'o, to his brother, Su Che. It recalls a journey the brothers took together and reports on what the poet finds now at a temple they had visited on that trip. It remembers Min Ch'e, the old monk. (The poem has many contemporary translations. Here's an attempt by Peter Lin and me.)