by Brett Rutherford
adapted from Li Yü, Poem 13
Some silly concubines believe
the Palace is the Universe.
Yet once, each arrived here
knowing nothing. At first,
they sent packages back home
to sisters, grandmothers.
Then they forgot,
as every new day
became a forever.
I hear them chattering
of how some distant hill
marks the Palace boundary.
Then on a clearer day
another hill behind it
presents itself, and that
is the world’s far edge.
In truth, I cannot walk
or ride from one end to another
in a single day. It just goes on
as ancestors appended hill
and valley, stream and forest.
Paintings are made
showing its lakes, gardens,
pavilions and vistas.
No scroll is wide enough, or high,
to do my palace grounds justice.
This truly is the heart of the world.
Yes, armies go forth;
some come back shattered.
Yes, taxes and tributes come,
and strangers kow-tow and beg.
In places I have never heard of,
they say the word “China” and sigh.
Strange it is
that the heart of China sighs,
and knows not for whom or why.
I cannot touch the hills.
The sky’s clouds defy my reach.
The water today
is unclear and cold:
the tea will not be right.
All summer I’ve been distracted.
I am thinking of the one
I am no longer allowed to see.
The leaves were still green
when she was taken from me,
and soon they will blaze red.
By trick and subterfuge,
an order forged, my seal affixed,
she has been carted off by night.
The Empress will not will her death,
but keeps her far away somewhere.
I dare not speak, I dare not ask.
It is as though she had never existed.
The opening chrysanthemum,
as it drinks in the sun,
mocks me. It closes, satisfied.
Swans at the edge of vision
fly, each with his mate up high.
No one gives them orders.
I am alone. I call for no one.
The concubines had might as well
be cemetery crows for all
I care about their caresses now.
The moon tugs earth and tides.
The mocking breeze pulls
at my curtains randomly.
Brush to paper,
I do not have the will to write.
I wait for something
to mean
something.
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