記采莓-Picking Blackberries

慕道途歸過野岩，

黑莓帶刺鳥愁銜。

牽藤撥蔓試涎口，

掌上珠璣血跡摻。

 

*賈島雲“兩句三年得”，信不虛。

此作偶觸險韻（下平聲十五鹹），末句雖經七夜磕牙，意猶未切。做詩如作繭自縛，又似攀岩登山，舍易而取難耳。

閏六月訪蜜辛城作 

 

Picking Blackberries

Returning from church, I passed wild rocks where
Blackberries grew, thorned, hard for birds to bear.
I tugged the vines and tasted berries fair—
Like pearls on my palm, but stained with blood they wear.

*The ancient master Jia Dao once sighed, "Two lines took three years"—how true!
This poem stumbled on a narrow rhyme. Though seven nights I gnashed my teeth to refine, the last line still feels forced. Verse-making binds like silkworms spinning cocoons, or climbers scaling peaks—
We forsake ease for hardship.

Written on the trip to Mission city in intercalary June