by Tu Fu
pleasure here. Music swelling to echo
through canyons, not a poor man in sight,
they were bathed by their choice women,
women pampered with silks that come slowly
from the hands of shivering farm wives. Their
husbands are horsewhipped by tax collectors
come demanding tributes for the palace,
and our wise king, wishing his people well,
sends baskets and bushels full of sincere
gifts. With trusted ministers without principles,
why squander perfectly good supplies?
The number of august men dawn brings to court
frightens any decent man. Even the emperor’s
imperial-gold tableware, they say, has been
divvied-out among blue-blooded families.
In the central hail, incense lifts from jade-
white bodies of dancing goddesses. Sable coats
warm, a grieving flute harmonizing with clear
pure koto songs, guests savor camel’s hoof
soup, fragrant whipped kumquats, frosted
coolie oranges…. The imperial-red gate:
dumped wine and meat rank inside, the frozen
dead by the road outside. All and nothing
Here but a key and half-step different. How
could such misery endured ever be retold?
I turn north toward the Wei and Ching.
At the flooded ferry-landing, I turn again.
A seaful of water flooding from the west looms
and summits to the edge of sight, and beyond—
to K’ung-t’ung Mountain peaks. Once it wrecks
the pillars of heaven, will anything remain?
One bridge is still holding, its welcome
trestlework a creaking howl and whisper
in wind. The current flowing broad and wild,
travelers manage to help each other across.
My dear wife keeping wind and snow from our
family in a strange place…. How could I
leave them so long alone? Thinking we would
at least be together again going without,
I come home to the sound of weeping, wailing
cries for my little son, stone-dead now of hunger.
The neighbors sob in the street. And who am I
to master my grief like some sage, ashamed
even to be a father—I, whose son has died
for simple lack of food? A full autumn
harvest—how could I have known, how
could the poor still be so desperate with want?
Son of an untaxed family, never dragged off
to make someone’s war, I have lived a life
charmed, and still too sad. O, the poor
grieve like a boundless wind in autumn trees.
Those who have lost all for war wander
darkly in my thoughts. Distant frontiers….
The elusive engines of grief loom like
all South Mountain, heave and swing loose.
CH’ANG-AN II
MOONLIT NIGHT
Tonight at Fu-chou, this moon she watches
Alone in our room. And my little, far-off
Children, too young to understand what keeps me
Away, or even remember Ch’ang-an. By now,
Her hair will be mist-scented, her jade-white
Arms chilled in its clear light. When
Will it find us together again, drapes drawn
Open, light traced where it dries our tears?
CH’EN-T’AO LAMENT
Now fine homes in ten prefectures have dead sons
making water with their blood on Ch’en-t’ao Marsh.
An early winter’s panoramic waste: crystal sky,
the silence of war. Forty thousand dead in a day.
Mongol battalions return. Their arrows bathed blood-
black, drunk in the markets, they sing Mongol songs.
And we face north to mourn, another day conjuring
our army’s appearance passing into hopeful night.
FACING SNOW
Enough new ghosts now to mourn any war,
And a lone old grief-sung man. Clouds at
Twilight’s ragged edge foundering, wind
Buffets a dance of headlong snow. A ladle
Lies beside this jar drained of emerald
Wine. The stove’s flame-red mirage lingers.
News comes from nowhere. I sit here,
Spirit-wounded, tracing words onto air.
SPRING LANDSCAPE
Rivers and mountains survive broken countries.
Spring returns. The city grows lush again.
Blossoms scatter tears thinking of us, and this
Separation in a bird’s cry startles the heart.
Beacon-fires have burned through three months.
By now, letters are worth ten thousand in gold.
My hair is white and thinning so from all this
Worry—how will I ever keep my hairpin in?
THINKING OF MY LITTLE BOY
Apart still, and already oriole songs
Fill warm spring days. Changing seasons
Startle me here without you, my little
Sage. Who talks philosophy with you now?
Clear streams, empty mountain paths, our
Simple village home among ancient trees….
In grief thinking of you, sleep: sunning
On the veranda, I nod off beneath blue skies.
ABBOT TS’AN’S ROOM, TA-YÜN MONASTERY
The lamp gutters and flares. Sleepless,
the scent of incense delicate, my mind
exacts clarity. In these depths of night,
the temple looming, a windchime shudders.
Blossoms veiled in heaven’s dark, earth’s
clarity continues—fragrant, secretive.
Jade String floats out beyond the roof, cut
where the temple phoenix wheels and soars.
Sutra chants drift from the hall. A bell
sounds, lingering, resounding over the bed.
Soon, dawn breaking across fertile plains,
I will face brown dust and sand, and grieve.
P’ENG-YA SONG
I remember long ago slipping away
in precarious depths of night. The moon
bright on Po-shui Mountain, I eluded
rebel armies and fled with my family
far north by foot on P’eng-ya Road.
By then, most people we met had lost all
shame. Scattered bird cries haunted
valleys. No one returned the way we came.
My silly, starved girl bit me and screamed.
Afraid tigers and wolves might hear,
I cradled her close, holding her mouth,
but she squirmed loose, crying louder still.
Looking after us gallantly, my little boy
searched out sour-plum feasts. Of ten days,
half were all thunder and rain—mud
and more mud to drag ourselves through.
We didn’t plan for rain. Clothes ever
colder, the road slippery, an insufferable
day’s travel often took us but a few short
miles by nightfall. Wild fruit replaced
what little food we had carried with us.
Low branches became our home. We left dew-
splashed rocks each morning, and passed
nights at the smoke-scored edge of heaven.
We had stopped at T’ung-chia Marsh,
planning to cross Lu-tzu Pass, when you
took us in, Sun Tsai, old friend, your
kindness towering like billowing clouds.
Dusk already become night, you hung lanterns
out and swung door after door wide open.
You soothed our feet with warm water
and cut paper charms to summon our souls,
then called your wife and childre
n in, their
eyes filling with tears for us. My chicks
soon drifted away in sleep, but you brought
them back, offering choice dishes of food.
You and I, you promised, will be forever
bound together like two dear brothers.
And before long, you emptied our rooms,
leaving us to joy and peace and rest.
In these times overrun with such calamity,
how many hearts are so open and generous?
A year of months since we parted, and still
those Mongols spin their grand catastrophes.
How long before I’ve grown feathers and wings
and settled beside you at the end of flight?
JADE-BLOSSOM PALACE
Below long pine winds, a stream twists.
Gray rats scuttle across spent roof tiles.
Bequeathed now beneath cliffs to ruin—who
knows which prince’s palace this once was?
Azure ghostflames flood shadow-filled rooms.
Erosion guts manicured paths. Earth’s
ten thousand airs are the enduring music,
autumn colors the height of indifference.
All brown earth now—the exquisite women
gracing his golden carriage have all become
their rouge and mascara sham. Of those
stately affairs, one stone horse remains.
Sitting grief-stricken in the grasses,
I sing wildly, wiping away tears for life
scarcely passes into old age, and no one
ever finds anything more of immortality.
THE JOURNEY NORTH
Heaven and Earth are racked with ruin,
sorrow and sorrow, no end in sight.
Slowly, roads and haphazard lanes pass.
Chimney smoke rare, cold wind merely
drones on. All we meet are moaning
wounded, bleeding still and muttering.
I turn to watch flags and streamers over
Feng-hsiang flare up at dusk and smother,
then climb through foothills and cold
hollows where cavalries stopped for water.
The fields of Pin spread falling away
into lowlands halved by the raging Ching,
and the savage tiger we come upon
splits gray cliffs apart with its roar.
Chrysanthemums scatter autumn petals
across stone scarred by ancient war-carts.
And soon, clouds in clear sky shape ethereal
joy. O, how quiet things apart contrive
delight, even now. Slight jewels tossed
among acorns and chestnuts, mountain
berries have ripened to rich cinnabar reds,
blacks deeper than lacquered bits of night.
What falling rain bathes is weighted,
whether bitter or sweet, with fruit.
Here, my Peach Blossom nostalgia fills with
remorse for life’s simplicity squandered.
From upper slopes, I look out across cliffs
breaking from disappearing valleys, to Fu-chou
highlands—then hurry, making the river
before my servant can leave ridgeline trees.
Owls call from mulberries turning yellow.
Ground squirrels, hands folded, stand about
their burrows. Soon, in the gaping night,
we cross battlefields of moonlight chilling
white bones. Warriors at T’ung-kuan Pass—
how quickly millions scattered into the past
there. And half the people followed, broken
Ch’in people mauled into strange other things.
And I, fallen also among the Mongol dust,
I return after a year to our thatched home,
a queer sight of white hair, finding my family
graced with countless mends and patches.
In hushed litany with pine winds, a mourning
brook shares our sobs. All that time
pampered, all my delight—my little
son wears a face whiter than snow now.
Seeing his father, not even socks for his
dirt and grime feet, he turns away and cries.
In skirts sewn and pieced just to cover
their knees, our two girls keep near my bed.
Patchwork seascapes of billows and torn
waves, their little cloaks are skewed
odds and embroidered ends, a purple-phoenix
potpourri among topsy-turvy sea gods.
An old man, heartsick, worried and driven
into bed vomiting and shitting for days—but
I did manage a bag of silks for you, didn’t I?
No more shivering from the cold, at least.
Powder and mascara, too, the fine, frail
wrappers untied, and quilts laid out gingerly.
My poor, thin wife is all bright-eyed again.
Her madcap girls merrily comb at their hair.
Elfin studies of their mother, leaving nothing
undone, they smear dawn make-up around with wild
abandon. Soon rouge is plastered everywhere,
and they are painting on demon-thick eyebrows.
Returned large as life to my girls and boys,
they nearly forget their hunger asking
questions, bickering, tugging at my poor beard.
How could I scold them? Buffeted still
in the grief warring rebels spawn, I savor
all this racket, this clamoring around.
Tomorrow’s want looming, and I scarcely
returned to comfort them, what could I say?
MEANDERING RIVER
1
Spring diminished with each petal in flight, these
Ten thousand wind-tossed flakes overwhelm me with grief.
Now the last blossoms are passing before my eyes
(All that anguish), I can’t afford to scrimp on wine.
Kingfishers nest in small, lakeside pavilions. Beside
Stately tombs at the park’s edge, unicorns lounge.
Joy is the nature of things. Look closely—where is
This fleeting consequence you’ve tangled your life in?
2
Day after day, I pawn spring clothes when court ends
And return from the river thoroughly drunk. By now,
Wine debts await me wherever I go. But then, life’s
Seventy years have rarely ever been lived out. And
Shimmering butterflies are plunging deep into blossoms
Here. Dragonflies quavering in air prick the water.
Drift wide, O wind and light—sail together
Where we kindred in this moment will never part.
DREAMING OF LI PO
Death at least gives separation repose.
Without death, its grief can only sharpen.
You wander out in malarial southlands,
and I hear nothing of you, exiled
old friend. Knowing I think of you
always now, you visit my dreams, my heart
frightened it is no living spirit
I dream. Endless miles—you come
so far from the Yangtze’s sunlit maples
night shrouds the passes when you return.
And snared as you are in their net,
with what bird’s wings could you fly?
Filling my room to the roof-beams, the moon
sinks. You nearly linger in its light,
but the waters deepen in long swells,
unfed dragons—take good care old friend.
FOR THE RECLUSE WEI PA
Lives two people live drift without
meeting, like Scorpio and Orion,
without nights like this: two friends
together again, candles and lamps
flickering. And youth doesn’t last.
Already gray, we ask after old friends,
finding ghosts—everywher
e, ghosts.
It startles the heart, and twists there.
Who dreamed it would be twenty years
when I left? You weren’t married then,
and look—already a proper little
flock of sons and daughters. In gleeful
respect for their father’s friend, they
ask where I’ve come from. And before
the asking and telling end, they are
bundled off to help with soup and wine,
spring scallions cut fresh in evening rain,
steamed rice garnished with yellow millet.
Pronouncing reunions extinct, you pour
ten cups a throw to our health. Ten cups,
and I’m drunk on nothing like your unfailing
friendship. Tomorrow, between us in all
this clamor of consequence, mountain
peaks will open out across two distances.
THE CONSCRIPTION OFFICER AT SHIH-HAO
It was late, but out in the night
when I arrived, he was collaring men.
Her husband, the old inn-keeper, slipped
over the wall, and she went to the gate.
The officer cursed loud and long, lost in
his rage. And lost in grief, an old woman
palsied with tears, she began offering
regrets: My three sons left for Yeh.
Then finally, from one, a letter arrived
full of news: two dead now. Living
a stolen life, my last son can’t last,
and those dead now are forever dead and
gone. Not a man left, only my little
grandson still at his mother’s breast.
Coming and going, hardly half a remnant
skirt to put on, she can’t leave him
yet. I’m old and weak, but I could hurry
to Ho-yang with you tonight. If you’d
let me, I could be there in time,