After Tu Fu
Thwarted, old friend! We have been baulked again.
Though we live at opposite ends of the same lane
We haven’t seen each other for ten whole days.
I returned my Official Horse to the local authorities;
And this road is rotten, like a deliberate plot.
An obstacle race! Now, thanks to my lack of credit
I can’t even rent a conveyance, though I still have shoes.
But what if my department-heads caught me afoot?
Taking such risks with protocol, face, future!
You know I’d walk through brambles to get to you.
By morning the rain is furious. I’m resigned,
Though I’ve raved like the Spring wind, in my sleep.
Now I’m deaf to the ring-bell and the bang-drum,
The summons to Court. Next door a lame donkey grazes.
A complaisant neighbor owns him, lends him. Ho!
But I daren’t ride the beast in the slick mud.
Not to that slippery Palace! Let them mark me absent.
Life is one long, fragmented, murky episode.
I hate getting through the day without a word:
When you hum your heavenly poems I brim with awe,
Nostalgia at the thought of your sweet cadence.
After they bloom, magnolia petals fall,
But you and I are overripe, my friend!
How many times have we two not complained
At the high cost of drinking! Even the corner vendor
Puts too high a price on our Illumination.
We can’t steep ourselves in Oblivion any more.
High-sounding, isn’t it? Come quickly, then,
To my place, for now it just so happens
I’ve saved enough small change to buy a gallon.
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