from COLD MOUNTAIN POEMS

The path to Han-shan’s place is laughable,
A path, but no signs of cart or horse.
Converging gorges - hard to trace their twists
Jumbled cliffs - unbelievably rugged.
A thousand grasses bend with dew,
A hill of pines hums in the wind.
And now I’ve lost the shortcut home,
Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?

--Han-shan, translated by Gary Snyder

Berklee’s poetry Walk was laid in October 2003 along Edison Street between Shattuck and Milvia Streets. The route includes 128 metal plates with excerpts from songs, each of which is related in one way or another to the city of Berkeley.

The plaque features a poem by the Chinese Buddhist poet who lived in the ninth century AD (his name means cold mountains). The song was translated by the American poet Gary Snyder (1930), one of the prominent figures of the Beat generation who worked in San Francisco and was characterized by writing in an associative and free manner