Tune:  “Tie Lian Hua”

Flowers are faded, few, and apricots small, blue-green
when swallows fly
and floods flow green around men’s homes.
Fewer flowers fall from willow branches
fragrant fields embrace the sky.

Inside a wall, a swing.  Outside, a road.
Outside, a wandering man goes by.
Inside, a woman’s lilting laugh
fades slowly with his distance down the road.
His feelings?  High.  Hers flow undisturbed.

 For Liu Jingwen
Background:  the artist dedicated this poem to an acquaintance who was the sole survivor (line two) of six brothers and their father.  The artist assures him (line four) his present is good (yellow), his future, promising (green).

Leaves shattered, open to rain, lotus are done.
As chrysanthemums wither, your stubborn branch defies the frost.
For now, however, remember the things that are good this year
for the citrons are yellow, and tangerines, green.

Bathing Ritual
Title:  three days after birth, a child receives his first bath in a ceremony.

Most folks hope for clever sons;
cleverness hurt me all my life.
All I wish:  dumb and ignorant sons
rising with ease to baron and duke.

Tune:  “Shui Diao Ge Tou”
Lines two through seven:  these lines are metaphoric for seeking high office.  They are hyperbole:  the artist’s government positions were among the highest.

During the Moon Festival of the year bingchen [October 1076], I so enjoyed drinking wine, I was quite drunk by dawn.  Then, thinking of my brother Ziyou, I wrote this poem.

How many eons has the moon been bright?
Cup in hand, I query heaven.
Up in the sky at the palace gate
who would know what year it is?
I long to ride the wind up there
but fear its halls of crystal jade
are far too high and cold for me.
Playful, rising, I dance with my shadow
which is better at least than living with men.

In red rooms
through silken doors
it brightens the sleepless:
I have no regrets
that the moon rounds full only when leaving.
As men feel joy then pain, or as they come then go
so waxing and waning, the moon goes bright then dim —
so things have gone since ancient days.
And now, I wish your years be long
as we share this moon from miles apart.

Old Poem
Background:  written during one of the artist’s three political exiles, when he was ordered to serve in the low rank of local magistrate.

No early out, this New Year’s Eve
official business keeps me here.
Brush in hand, I face in tears
with pity for their ropes, the convicts
little men in search of food

fallen shameless into legal pockets.
A meager salary hooks me, too
missed retirement, must hang on.
What point in judging wise from foolish?
We all lay plots for food.
Dare I free them, just for New Year’s day?
In silent shame, I face my elders’ judgment.

Tune:  “Lin Jiang Xian”
Background:  the artist writes from exile.  His local government overseer, catching word of this poem, rushed to the artist’s home, fearful he had sailed away.
Line one:  at parties, the artist usually followed drinking with a brief nap.  Then he would wake to pursue activities typically under way — poetry, calligraphy, painting.
Line two:  third watch:  12:00-2:00 AM.

Drunk at Dongpo, I sober up; then drink again.
About third watch, back to the house.
Snoring already, my houseboy thunders.
I pound the door.  No reply.
Cane aside, I listen to the river sounds.

I have long regretted this mutinous flesh —
when will it free me of care?
Night ends; the wind drops.  River flat as patterned silk.
Sailing away in a little boat
I will put to sea for the rest of life.

Up Wanghu Tower on the Twenty-seventh Day of the Sixth Month:  Written while Drunk: I

Like spilled ink, black clouds approach the hills.
Like pearls tossed into my boat, white drops bounce.
Then earth-rolling winds sweep everything off.
From Wanghu Tower:  water.  Sky.

Enjoying the Peonies at Jixiang Monastery

Unashamed, this old man wears a flower.
Is the flower ashamed on the old man’s head? —
going home drunk, helped down the road — how people must laugh
behind their miles of half-raised beaded shades.

South Garden: I
Line four:  the artist sometimes offers innovative treatments of the olfactory sense.

Planting no willows, no pretty peach
this governor sweats over mulberry trees.
Spring rains drift like gauzy silk across the fields.
On wheatfield winds, I catch the scent of bread and buns.

Tune:  “Jiang Cheng Zi”
Background:  the artist dreams of his dead wife, Wang Fu (1039-1065).
Line sixteen:  conifers, symbols of longevity, were often planted on grave mounds; these are still young.

For a decade now, living and dead are mutual shades.
Difficult, not to remember
hard, forgetting a heart.
Your lonely grave:  a thousand miles from here
through cold and sorrow….  Anyway, where could we talk?
How, if we met, would we know each other?
Your grave-dusted face
my temples of frost.

Then you came like secret light.
Up in your window
you wash, make up.
I watch….
Tears fall in endless lines.
Thoughts of you break my heart.
Bright moon night
mounded grave.  Pines still short.

Tune:  “Nian Nu Jiao”
Background:  even before the fall of the Han (221 BCE-220CE), China was functionally divided into what became the Three Kingdoms (220-265) (line six), each contending for national rule.  In 208, at Red Cliff on the Yangzi river, General Cao Cao (155-220), who controlled the north, failed to invade the south when forces led by Zhou Gongjin (Zhou Yu; lines six, twelve) burned his fleet and camp with a fire ship.  The artist wrote this poem when visiting another location on the Yangzi named Red Cliff, which, he was misinformed (line five), was the famous battle site.

Eastward the giant river rolls
waves effacing the smallest sign
of a thousand carefree men of old.
Off to the old fort’s west
folks say
lies Red Cliff.  There, where Zhou Yu of Three Kingdoms fought
jumbled rocks rip floating clouds
and charging tides attack the shore
in a thousand billows of rolling snow.
Like a picture now, these hills and the river
where once a thousand heroes thronged.

Think of Zhou in his glorious prime
recently married to the younger Jiao
shining with vigor, aglow with command:
with feathered fan and silken scarf
he chatted and laughed
as his powerful foe trailed off in smoke.
As my spirit wanders these antique lands
people must laugh at my floods of feeling
at my growth of hair gone early gray.
Life in this world is only a dream….
So!  Refill your cups!  A toast to the moon in the river!