by Tu Fu
Vermont, January 1989 David Hinton
My Thanks
To Jody Gladding for advice during the revisions, support, and much more;
To Eliot Weinberger for his help with the manuscript and his indispensable spirit;
To J. P. Seaton for support and for reading the first draft;
To New Directions and Peggy Fox, my editor;
And, for financial assistance, to Cornell University, The Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, The Pacific Cultural Foundation, and The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
No one knows your thoughts, master,
And night is empty around us, silent.
EARLY POEMS
GAZING AT THE SACRED PEAK
For all this, what is the mountain god like?
An unending green of lands north and south:
from ethereal beauty Creation distills
there, yin and yang split dusk and dawn.
Swelling clouds sweep by. Returning birds
ruin my eyes vanishing. One day soon,
at the summit, the other mountains will be
small enough to hold, all in a single glance.
VISITING FENG-HSIEN TEMPLE AT LUNG-MEN
I leave the temple, but stay another
night nearby. The dark valley all empty
music, moonlight scatters lucid
shadow among trees. Heaven’s Gap
cradles planets and stars. I sleep
among clouds—and stirring, my clothes
cold, hear the first bell sound
morning for those waking that deeply.
WRITTEN ON THE WALL AT CHANG’S HERMITAGE
In spring mountains, alone, I set out to find you.
Axe strokes crack—crack and quit. Silence doubles.
I pass snow and ice lingering along cold streams, then,
Late light wavering at Stone Gate, enter these woods.
Deer graze here each morning, for you harm nothing.
And because you want nothing, auras of silver and gold
Grace nights. Pacing you on a whim in bottomless dark, the way
Here lost—I feel it drifting, this whole empty boat.
THOUGHTS, FACING RAIN:
I GO TO INVITE HSÜ IN
Clouds summit above T’ai Mountain, peak
And summit, serene as full-river voices
In vacant space. Lightning skitters swallows
On painted screens. Fish dip back below
Steady rains, deepen and drift. When I
Hear you outside, I am drinking cheap wine.
Ashamed of mud, calling Bring your horse
Right up to the porch here, I invite you in.
FOR LI PO
Autumn returns, and again we are cast thistledown together
On the winds. The elixir of immortality has eluded us—
Ko Hung must be ashamed. Days drunk and singing too loud,
Given to the wind, yet resolute—so brave, and for whom?
CH’ANG-AN I
A LETTER FROM MY BROTHER AT LIN-YI ARRIVES
LAMENTING RAINS AND FLOODING ON THE
YELLOW RIVER. AS ASSISTANT MAGISTRATE, HE
IS WORRIED ABOUT THE COLLAPSING DIKES, SO
I SEND THIS POEM TO EASE HIS THOUGHTS
The Dual Principles have ended in rain and wind,
Billows and waves falling from a hundred
Mountain valleys. I hear the river is broken
Wide open and gathering every distance into one
Cold rising sea. Lament seizes every district.
Officials grow quiet with worry. And directing
Defenses against the river, you are also
Helpless. Your foot-long letter arrives, saying
There isn’t time for new dikes. Enlisting
Mu Wang’s turtles and crocodiles is impossible,
And looking to magpies from the Celestial River
Futile. South of Yen, farmlands are nothing
Now but wind. Even Chi hills are no more
Than sunken thistleweed. Waters thick with
Clams and snails lap at city walls; hornless
Dragons and dragons with scales roam every pool.
Hsü Pass deep as any water god’s palace,
Chieh-shih Mountain a mere tip of autumn hair,
Nothing remains of peasant villages but a lone
Tree and ten-thousand boats lost in azure sky.
Adrift, slight as a flood-charm, I sail for peach
Branches of immortality. There, at the edge of
Heaven with my fishhook and line, surely
I will land the P’eng-lai tortoise for you.
SONG OF THE WAR-CARTS
War-carts clatter and creak,
horses stomp and splutter—
each wearing quiver and bow, the war-bound men pass.
Mothers and fathers, wives and children—they all flock
alongside, farewell dust so thick Hsien-yang Bridge
disappears. They get everywhere in the way, crying
cries to break against heaven, tugging at war clothes.
On the roadside, when a passerby asks war-bound men,
war-bound men say simply: Our lots are drawn often.
Taken north at fifteen, we guard the Yellow River. Taken
west at forty, we man frontier camps. Village elders
tied our head-cloths then. And now we return, our
hair white, only to be sent out again to borderlands,
lands where blood swells like sea-water. And Emperor Wu’s
imperial dreams of conquest roll on. Haven’t you heard
that east of the mountains, in our Han
homeland, ten hundred towns and
ten thousand villages are overrun by thorned weeds,
that even though strong wives keep hoeing and plowing,
you can’t tell where crops are and aren’t? It’s worst for
mighty Ch’in warriors: the more bitter war they outlive,
the more they are herded about like chickens and dogs.
Though you are kind to ask, sir,
how could we complain? Imagine
this winter in Ch’in. Their men
still haven’t returned, and those
clerks are out demanding taxes.
Taxes! How could they pay taxes?
Even a son’s birth is tragic now.
People prefer a daughter’s birth,
a daughter’s birth might at least end in marriage nearby.
But a son’s birth ends in an open grave who knows
where. You haven’t seen how bones from ancient times
lie, bleached and unclaimed along the shores of
Sky-Blue Seas—how the weeping of old ghosts is
joined by new voices, the gray sky by twittering rain.
CROSSING THE BORDER
1
So far from my village—sent so far
away to the Chiao River. Reporting
dates are final, and nets of calamity tangle
anyone who resists. Our lands are rich
enough and more for a king, what good
can a little more ground bring?
Shouldering my spear, lost, parents’
love lost—tasting silence, I go.
2
I left home long ago. Now, the early
abuse is over. My bones a father’s love,
my flesh a mother’s—how are they so
broken in a son still alive to guess at
his death (shaking free of its reins,
a horse tearing blue silk from my hands, or
after inching down a mountainside, eighty
thousand feet, trying for a fallen flag)?
3
In a river of muted cries, I sharpen
my sword, longing for the heart’s
silence long laced with cries of stricken
people. But the water bleeds, the edge
cuts my hand. Once devoted to his
countr
y, what has a good man to resent?
Heroes live forever in Unicorn Pavilion,
and the bones of war rot quickly away.
4
Always some clerk to scare-up men and
send them out. The frontiers are well-
supplied. Death certain as life,
we advance. And still, officers rage.
Meeting a friend on the road, I send
letters home….O, how are we cast so
far from one another, broken apart, never
to scrape by in sorrow together again?
5
Distant, ten thousand miles and more
distant, they take us to join vast armies.
Soldiers come to joy and grief by chance,
how could generals hear everything? Riders
appear across the river. Then suddenly
they arrive, ten hundred Mongol brigades.
From this rankless beginning, how long
until my reputation is made and confirmed?
6
In drawing bows, draw the strongest;
in using arrows, use the longest.
To shoot men, first shoot their horses;
to take enemies, first take their generals.
But killing must be kept within limits:
a country is nothing without borders. Far
beyond any claim of defense, what is ours
now with all this slaughter and death?
7
Pushing our horses hard through mixed
rain and snow, we enter high mountains.
The trail narrows. Our fingers breaking
through layers of ice, we hug frozen rock.
So far from our Chinese moon,
building walled forts—will we ever
return? At dusk, clouds drift away
south, clouds I cannot mount and ride.
8
The Mongols descend on our positions.
For hundreds of miles, dust-filled
winds darken skies. A few brave
sword strokes drive armies before us.
We capture their famed chieftain and
present him, tied by the neck, when
we return. Preparing to march, we stand
in formation. One win—so much talk.
9
In ten years and more at war, how could I
avoid all honor? People so treasure it,
I thought of telling my story, but sounding
like all the others would be too shameful.
War flickers throughout our heartland
and rages steadily along the frontiers.
With such fine men chasing ambition
everywhere, who can elude savage beggary?
NEW YEAR’S EVE AT TU WEI’S HOME
The songs over pepper wine have ended.
Friends jubilant among friends, we start
A stabled racket of horses. Lanterns
Blaze, scattering crows. As dawn breaks,
The fortieth year passes in my flight toward
Evening light. Who can change it, who
Stop it for even a single embrace—this dead
Dazzling drunk in the wings of life we live?
MEANDERING RIVER: THREE STANZAS, FIVE LINES EACH
1
Meandering River desolate, autumn skies deep—withered
bits of blown lotus and chestnut drift. Lamenting this
wanderer handed-down into old age is empty: White
pebbles and shoreline sand also chafe back and forth.
A wailing swan, alone, cries out in search of its kind.
2
Singing that which occurs, neither modern nor ancient,
my rising song only breaks against bushes and trees.
And those houses stand, in their lavish parade, countless.
I welcome this heart of ash. Dear brother, dear little
niece—why so hurt, why these tears falling like rain?
3
I have asked enough answers of heaven for one life.
Enough, having hemp and mulberry fields there,
to settle near South Mountain, in Tu-ling. Riding
with Li Kuang, in simple clothes, I will end my
failing years shooting phantom tigers as they appear.
LI STOPS BY ON A SUMMER DAY
In distant woods, summer heat thin,
you stop by. It could be in a village
somewhere, my little tumbledown
house near the city’s south tower—
neighbors open and simple-hearted,
needs easily filled. Call across
for wine, the family to the west
gladly hands a pot over the fence,
fresh, unstrained. We spread mats
beside the stream. Clear winds arrive
carelessly, and you imagine autumn
stunning already. Everywhere, nesting
birds bicker, thickening cicada songs
fill lush leaves—who calls my home
among this racket of things secluded?
We linger out flawless, dusk-tinted
blossoms on water—a world enough now,
enough and more. And without worry,
the winepot still far from empty, I go
again with schemes aplenty for more.
9/9, SENT TO TS’EN SHEN
I step out for a moment, then back.
Foundering rain-clouds haven’t changed;
ditchwater babbles everywhere. Thinking
of you, I grow thin. I mutter songs
on the west porch. Meals pass indistinct
as night and day. Meandering River a mere
half-step away—and yet, meeting you
there is impossible now…. How much
more must earth’s simple people bear?
Their farms are beyond hope. And if we
scold the cloud-spirit, who will ever
patch these leak-sprung heavens? O,
sun and moon lost to a haze and waste
world, twitter and howl. Noble men
driven into twisted paths, simple-hearted
people, frantic, run themselves ragged.
Even the exalted South Mountain might
already have sunk and drifted away.
What is it for—here at my eastern fence,
this holiday confusion of chrysanthemums?
Your new poems? Our shared weakness
for wine? Cut them—I’ll cut the yellow-
bloomed things and fill my sleeves
far too beautifully for nothing today.
AUTUMN RAIN LAMENT
Looming rain and reckless wind, an indiscriminate
ruins of autumn. The four seas and eight horizons all
gathered into one cloud—you can’t tell an ox coming
from horse going, or the muddy Ching from clear Wei.
Wheat-ears are sprouting on the stalk, and millet-
clusters turn black. Nothing arrives from farmers,
not even news. Here in the city, quilts bring
one handful of rice. No one mentions old bargains.
FENG-HSIEN RETURN CHANT
An old man from Tu-ling unhinged a life
in twisted thought and harlequin rags
begging to rescue the times like any fool,
as if he were Chi or Chieh. He will end
empty as Hui Tzu’s huge, useless gourd.
A white-haired man too willing to suffer,
once my coffin is covered, this longing for
what will suffice will end. And yet,
it is poverty’s year. I mourn the people,
my song brimmed with lament, to my aging
schoolmates’ amusement—a held sigh
and fever of the heart. Not that I haven’t
a hermit’s love for rivers and seas,
for a life wind scatters in vanishing
days and months, but with a ruler rare as
Yao or Shun, I couldn’t endure
that
endless farewell. We have everything
good government could possibly want now
but good government. The sunflower
cannot change what it is, it will always
turn toward the sun. And the frenzied ant
searching for its snug little burrow,
how could it ever be a huge whale
taking comfort in the boundless sea?
It’s the nature of things. What a fool
I’ve been, taking my concerns around on
polite visits—so determined, so very
willing to drown myself in this dust.
Ch’ao and Yu refused to abandon their
hermit’s discipline. In shame before them,
drinking recklessly, I lose myself chanting
songs to conjure broken sorrows away.
The hundred grasses in tatters, high wind-
scoured ridges and stars—it is year’s end
on the imperial highway. Among shadows
towering in the heart of night, I set out.
Soon, fingers frostbitten, I can’t tie my coat
closed when it falls open. Among peaks I pass
in the bitter morning, on Li Mountain, our emperor
sleeps soundly. Ch’ih Yu banners trail out
into stars. In this cold, empty canyon passing
armies have polished smooth, steam billows
over his little Jasper Lake. Constellations
chafe and jar against his imperial lances.
Regal ministers were up late taking their