The Selected Poems of Tu Fu Read online

  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.