Monday morning, 7 a.m.: 30 degrees, with a warmish breeze and a dim cloud of mist rising from the clotted snow. The air is the color of smoke.

I've been thumbing though translations of work by the ninth-century Chinese poet Cold Mountain (Hanshan). The book is filled with what must be gems, yet I can't exactly make them refract clarity into my own life. For instance--

The wine of wisdom is so cold
drinking it makes me sober

and more confusingly

A child who doesn't have a teacher
will never catch a city rat

It's puzzling, this disconnect. I begin to understand what he is saying, and then I don't. Although my ignorance doesn't exactly worry me, it does make me feel off balance, as if I'm slightly drunk or am coming down with the flu; and the sensation flows into this odd smoky daylight, first dawn of December--the house suddenly quiet now that the washing machine has kicked off, a ticking clock rising into the void like a soloist.

People can't explain
the reason they're so crazy

* 

there's a road but not to town
only mindless men can climb 

* 

Hey you people who leave home
what does leaving home mean

* 

Who knows how to catch rats
doesn't need five white cats

* 

if you can't make sense of this
I suspect you'll die of anger