by Tu Fu
cook an early meal for our brave boys.
Later, in the long night, voices fade.
I almost hear crying hush—silence….
And morning, come bearing my farewells,
I find no one but the old man to leave.
PARTING IN OLD AGE
Vanished in all four directions—peace,
peace old age will never bring. My
sons and grandsons all war-dead,
why live this body’s life out alone?
Tossing my cane aside, I set out, pitiful
sight even to fellow soldiers—a man
lucky to have these few teeth left
now the marrow is dried from his bones.
Among armor-clad warriors, I offer
deep farewell bows to the magistrate,
and my dear wife lies by the roadside
sobbing, her winter clothes worn paper-
thin. This death’s farewell wounds me
again with her bitter cold. From this,
no return. And still, she calls out
behind me: You must eat more—please.
T’u-men’s wall is strong, Hsing-yüan
ferry formidable. It’s not like Yeh.
Though no less certain, death won’t come
suddenly. Life is separation and return,
is plentiful one day, and the next
withered. It is the nature of things, I
know, but thinking of our shared youth,
I look back slowly, heart-stricken.
Nothing in ten thousand kingdoms but war.
Beacon-fires smother ridges and peaks.
Grasslands and forests reeking of the dead,
Blood turns brooks and springs cinnabar-red.
Not an untormented village left anywhere,
how can I hesitate, how avoid this life
torn loose from my calm, thatched-home
life laying my insides out bare to ruin.
CH’IN-CHOU/T’UNG-KU
CH’IN-CHOU SUITE
1
North of Ch’in-chou, a monastery inhabits
Wei Hsiao’s ruined palace now: ancient
Mountain gate all lichen and moss, eloquent
Halls painted cinnabar and blue empty.
Moonlit dew flares on failing leaves.
Clouds chase wind over a stream. Beyond
Indifference, the clear Wei just flows
Away east in this time of grief—alone.
2
Through these borderlands, as night falls
Across rivers, drums and horns rehearse
War. Their cries rise from autumnal earth
Everywhere, wind scattering them into clouds
Grieving. Leaf-hidden, cold cicadas turn mute.
Slowly, toward the mountains, a lone bird
Returns. All ten thousand places throughout
Alike—how could I reach my journey’s end?
3
Through mist stretching away to K’un-lun
Peaks, frontier rains fall in torrents.
A Ch’iang boy gazes into the Wei. Wu’s envoy
Nears the Yellow River’s source. As smoke
Rises over camped armies, cattle and sheep
Graze outside a summit village. Here,
Where I live, autumn grasses have grown
Calm when I close my little bramble gate.
4
Frontier shadows become autumn nights easily,
And daybreak passes imperceptibly. Rain
Tumbling from eaves down curtains, mountain
Clouds drift low across our wall. A cormorant
Gazes into a shallow well. Earthworms climb
Deep into our dry rooms. Horses, carts—
They pass desolate and alone. At my gate
Here, the hundred grasses have grown tall.
MOONLIT NIGHT THINKING OF MY BROTHERS
Warning drums have ended all travel.
A lone goose cries across autumn
Borderlands. White Dew begins tonight,
This bright moon bright there, over
My old village. My scattered brothers—
And no home to ask Are they alive or dead?
Letters never arrive. War comes
And goes—then comes like this again.
AT SKY’S-END THINKING OF LI PO
In these last outskirts of sky, cold
Winds rise. What are you thinking?
Will geese ever arrive, now autumn
Waters swamp rivers and lakes there?
Art resents life fulfilled, and goblins
Dine on mountain travelers with glee:
Why not sink poems to that ill-used
Ghost in the Mi-lo, talk things over?
STAYING THE NIGHT WITH ABBOT TS’AN
What drove you here, master? Cold
Autumn winds already howl. Deep, rain
sogged chrysanthemums litter the garden,
And in the pond, frost topples lotuses.
But the zazen emptiness you’ve become
Remains empty in exile. And tonight, we
Two together again, it is for us alone
This Ch’in-chou moon has risen full.
RAIN CLEARS
At the edge of heaven, tatters of autumn
Cloud. After ten thousand miles of clear
Lovely morning, the west wind arrives. Here,
Long rains haven’t slowed farmers. Frontier
Willows air thin kingfisher colors, and
Red fruit flecks mountain pears. As a flute’s
Mongol song drifts from a tower, one
Goose climbs clear through vacant skies.
EYEFUL
The whole district through—ripened grapes,
Autumn hills lavish with clover. Clouds
Shroud the passes, and steady frontier
Rains still haven’t filled the rivers here.
Ch’iang women in their burlesque of beacon
Fires, Mongols leading camels about—
Enough. In life’s twilit years, eyes broken, all
Loss and ruin—of what comes to pass, enough.
THOUGHTS COME
My sad eyes find frost and wild, blooming
Chrysanthemums on a cold wall. Broken willows
Sway in heaven’s wind. And when a clear flute
Sings, my traveler’s tears fall. A tower’s
Shadow stretching across poised water, peaks
Gather darkness. A frontier sun stalls—then
Night. After returning birds arrive, come
Slaughter-filled cries: crows settling-in.
THE NEW MOON
Slice of ascending light, arc tipped
Aside its bellied darkness—the new moon
Appears and, scarcely risen beyond ancient
Frontiers, edges behind clouds. Silver,
Changeless—Heaven’s River spreads across
Empty peaks scoured with cold. White
Dew dusts the courtyard, chrysanthemum
Blossoms clotting there with swollen dark.
POUNDING CLOTHES
Borderlands return no one. Autumn comes,
Season of fulling-stones. Soon, bitter
Cold months will sharpen separation’s
Long ache. Tired, but with all my
Woman’s strength, hurrying to send them
Deep into Great Wall country, I pound
Clothes here in the courtyard. And you,
My love, listen to sounds beyond the sky.
STANDING ALONE
Empty skies. And beyond, one hawk.
Between river banks, two white gulls
Drift and flutter. Pit for an easy kill,
To and fro, they follow contentment.
Dew shrouds grasses. Spiderwebs are still
Not gathered in. The purpose driving
Heaven become human now, I stand where
Uncounted sorrows begin beginning alone.
LANDSCAPE
> Clear autumn opens endlessly away.
Early shadows deepening, distant
Waters empty into flawless sky.
A lone city lies lost in fog. Few
Enough leaves, and wind scattering
More, the sun sets over remote peaks.
A lone crane returning…. Why so late?
Crows already glut woods with night.
AN EMPTY PURSE
Though bitter, juniper berries are food
For immortals, and cirrus flushed with morning
Light. But people are common things,
These tangles of trouble my only life:
A frozen well each morning and no stove,
Cold nights without quilts…. In fear
Of shame an empty purse brings, I hold
In mine this one coin I keep, peering in.
SEVEN SONGS AT T’UNG-KU
1
A wanderer—O, all year, Tzu-mei a wanderer,
white hair a shoulder-length confusion, gathering
acorns all year, like Tsu the monkey sage. Under cold
skies, the sun sets in this mountain valley. No word
arrives from the central plain, and for failing
skin and bone, ice-parched hands and feet, no return, no
return there Song, my first song
sung, O song already sad enough,
winds come from the furthest sky grieving for me.
2
Sturdy hoe, O long sturdy hoe, my white-handled
fortune—now I depend on you, on you alone
for life, there isn’t a wild yam shoot to dig. Snow
fills the mountains. I tug at a coat never covering
my shins. And when we return this time, empty-handed
again—my children’s tears are deafening, the four walls
harbor quiet Song, my second song
sung, O song beginning to carry,
this village is peopled with faces grieving for me.
3
Brothers of mine, my brothers in far-off places, O
three frail brothers—is anyone strong now these
scattering lives we wander never meet? Now Mongol dust
smothers the sky, this road between us goes on forever.
Cranes flock eastward, following geese. But cranes—
how could cranes carry me there, to another life beside
my brothers Song, my third song
sung, O song sung three times over,
if they return, where will they come to gather my bones?
4
Sister of mine, my sister in Chung-li—devoted husband
dead young, orphan children unhinged, O my sister,
the long Huai is all deep swells, all flood-dragon fury—
how will you ever come now? Ten years apart—how will I
ever find you in my little boat? Arrows fill my eyes,
and the south, riddled with war banners and flags, harbors
another dark Song, my fourth song
sung, O song rehearsed four times through,
gibbons haunt the midday forest light wailing for me.
5
Mountains, all mountains and wind, headlong streams and
rain—O, the cold rain falling into withered trees fails.
And clouds never clear. Among brown weeds and ancient
city walls—white foxes prowl, brown foxes stand fast.
This life of mine—how can I live this life out in some
starveling valley? I wake and sit in the night, ten thousand
worries gathering Song, my fifth song
sung, O song long enough now
singing my soul back, my lost soul gone to my lost home.
6
A dragon—O, a dragon in southern mountains, cragged
trees mingling their ancient branches above its pool—
when yellowed leaves fall, it sinks into hibernation,
and from the east, adders and cobras come roaming the water.
A traveler full of fear, how could I confront them?
My sword is hardly drawn before I put it away, before I
rest here Song, my sixth song
sung, O song wearing your thoughts thin,
streams and valleys are graced by spring again for me,
7
a man
every distinction has eluded, a man grown old only
to wander three hungry years away on mountain roads.
In Ch’ang-an, statesmen are young. Honor, wealth—
men devote themselves early. Wise men I knew long ago
live here in the mountains now. Our talk is all old
times gone by, nothing more—old friends harboring
wounded memories Song, my seventh song
sung, O uneasy silence ending my tune,
a white sun fills the majestic sky with headlong flight.
CH’ENG-TU
ASKING WEI PAN TO FIND PINE STARTS
Standing alone, austere, they are not willows. Green—
How could such abiding green be candleberry? I imagine
Old age nurtured a thousand years in shade, and you
Finding pine starts, sturdy ones with frosty roots.
FOUR QUATRAINS
1
Bamboo shoots tail on the west, I use another gate:
Peppers in rows north of the ditch, the village behind.
When they ripen, old Chu and I will dine on plums.
When the pines tower, I’ll write to Yüan about them.
2
I’ve planned a pier, but the water is cloud-hidden
And startled May rain sounds ice-cold. Dragons
Settled this clear stream first. Even sturdy as mountains,
What peace could bamboo on stone pilings ever bring?
3
Two yellow orioles sing from a willow. Egrets climb into
Blue sky: one trail of white. Thousand-autumn
Snows on western peaks fill my window. And at my gate,
Eastern boats anchor—ten-thousand-mile boats from Wu.
4
Some still sparse green, some lush—my rain-soaked
Herbs freshen both pavilion and porch with color.
These waste mountains are full of them—but which is
What? And roots growing into frightening shapes?
THE PLUM RAINS
Here in the Southern Capital, May plums,
Ripe and yellow, line Hsi Creek Road.
Deep and clear, the long stream flows
Away. Fine rains arrive, dark and steady,
Soaking easily through loose thatch.
Their heavy clouds will not scatter soon.
All day long, dragons delight—eddies
Curling into the bank start back out.
A GUEST
I’ve had asthma now for years. But here
Beside this river, our ch’i-sited
Home is new. Even simple noise scarce,
Its healing joy and ease are uncluttered.
When someone visits our thatch house, I
Call the kids to straighten my farmer’s cap,
And from the sparse garden, gather young
Vegetables—a small handful of friendship.
THE RIVER VILLAGE
In one curve, cradling our village, the clear river
Flows past. On long summer days, the business of solitude
Fills this river village. Swallows in the rafters
Come and go carelessly. On the water, gulls nestle
Tenderly together. My wife draws a paper go board,
And tapping at needles, the kids contrive fishhooks.
Often sick, I need drugs and herbs—but what more,
Come to all this, what more could a simple man ask?
A FARMER
Here, beyond the smoke and dust, our
River village has eight or nine homes.
Lotus leaves float, tiny and round,
And delicate wheat blossom
s feather away.
I’ll grow old in this ch’i-sited house,
A farmer distant from the chafe of events.
Where has all my shame before Ko-hung gone,
Never asking how cinnabar is found here?
THE FARMHOUSE
Beside a clear curving river, our farmhouse
Gate opens onto an old road. The village
Market is grown over. I’ve gotten lazy
In this simple place, dress however I please.
Willow branches all sway easily. And loquats,
Tree after tree, scent the air. Drying
Cocked wings alight with the glare of
Late sun, cormorants crowd our fishing pier.
BOATING
Still a wanderer farming at the Southern Capital,
Spirit-wounded, I can’t stop gazing north out windows.
But today, I take my wife out in the skiff. Drifting,
We watch our kids bathe in the bright, clear river.
Butterflies tumble through air, one chasing another.
Sharing stems, lotus blossoms float in natural pairs.
Tea, sugar-cane juice—we bring along what simple
Things we have, our clay jars no less now than jade.
A MADMAN
West of Wan-li Bridge, beside our grass cottage,
Po-hua Stream would delight the angler of Ts’ang-lang.
Caressed by wind, bamboo sways—elegant, flawless.
In rain, red lotus blossoms grow more and more fragrant.