黑莓带刺鸟愁衔。
牵藤拨蔓试涎口，
掌上珠玑血迹掺。
*贾岛云“两句三年得”，信不虚。
此作偶触险韵（下平声十五咸），末句虽经七夜磕牙，意犹未切。做诗如作茧自缚，又似攀岩登山，舍易而取难耳。
闰六月访蜜辛城作
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
