April soft and cold: A long anguish

Last year I overcame my aversion to Tang poetry and shared several from Li Bai. Look, he had me at the title “Wine Song”.

So this year I’m revisiting the Tang dynasty and sharing examples from Li’s contemporary, Du Fu. I find Du interesting partly because his greatest desire was to be a civil servant, but couldn’t somehow manage that.

I know my thinking on this matter is colored by the fact that many contemporary office holders at all levels of our government are so incompetent and disinterested in actual service that I picture the barrier to entry as being at ground level.

But the administrative world’s loss was China’s cultural gain, because Du is widely held to be about as good as it gets, among a field of poets that was considered to be as bright as a meteorite shower.

Here are three of his poems; the last one is one he wrote about his friendship with and admiration for Li Bai.

“Moonlit Night”

Tonight my wife must watch alone

    the full moon over Fu-zhou;

I think sadly of my sons and daughters far away,

too young to understand this separation

or remember our life in Chang'an.

In fragrant mist, her flowing hair is damp;

In clear moonlight, her jade-white arms are cold.

When will we lean at the open casement together

while the moonlight dries our shining tears?

“Pounding the Clothes”

You won’t return from the front.

I clean the laundry stone in autumn.

The bitter cold months are near;

My heart aches with long separation.

Can I shirk the toil of pounding your clothes?

No, they must go to the Great Wall.

Let me use all my woman’s strength.

May you, my lord, hear the sound o’er the vast.

“Dreaming of Li Bai”

Separation by death must finally be choked down,

but separation in life is a long anguish,

Chiang-nan is a pestilential land;

no word from you there in exile.

You have been in my dreams, old friend,

as if knowing how much I miss you.

Caught in a net,

how is it you still have wings?

I fear you are no longer mortal;

the distance to here is enormous.

When your spirit came, the maples were green;

when it went, the passes were black.

The setting moon spills light on the rafters;

for a moment I think it's your face.

The waters are deep, the waves wide;

don't let the river gods take you.