Trees and Grasses Grow Deep
—for Du Fu, too
Your tears roil in the riverwater.
The fires of loss burn in its sobbing.
Your dim campaigns, your dark beacons
are etched in the ravines of your brow.
At dusk you retreat to the oaks
to seize an empire’s overgrown heart.
Your brown pupils reflect
your landscape, your people, the road of bones and flowers.
A white horse of paper, your lone boat
winding among them, stopping now and then.
A cup of thick wine set down, then lifted again.
Every leaf falls withered from a height.
A cloud lingers overhead
above sorrow’s altar, unwilling to leave.
You emerge from the tiny mountains
and keep going, on and on, into eternity.
Note: Almost every line of this poem contains an allusion to a different poem by China’s most revered poet, Du Fu (712-770). To a Chinese reader it reads like a collage of resonant images and phrases evocative of Du Fu’s life and times. In the English translation we have striven simply to convey the logic of the images, and do so in a way that communicates the theme and emotional tenor of the poem.
About the translators
Austin Woerner is a Creative Fellow in Chinese-English literary translation at the University of Leeds.
Feng Zewei is an MA student currently enrolled in the English Literature course at the School of English, University of Leeds.