There were two books that I was rarely without in the early Eighties. A copy of One Robe One Bowl, by the monk Ryokan, and Cold Mountain, the Burton Watson translation of the poems of Han-Shan. I think I’d found the latter in a used book store. It was a rather large book and too unwieldy to carry with me at all times. The book by Ryokan, however, was with me nearly always. When I was working as a bank teller, the book was always close at hand.

At some point in the Nineties a friend, who didn’t know that I had an older edition of Cold Mountain, gave me the miniature book you can see above. Yesterday I found the book in a box in the garage, where it was stored since my move.

I was happy to see the book again.