The Hut

by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yü, poem 19

Like bandits we meet
at an abandoned hut.
We pretend to be peasants,
engaged in some illicit
love affair. This is our game.
She plays the bamboo flute, not well,
but I delight at her fingers at play
as she creates a new melody.

The glances she steals, the way
she looks at me, as though
I were a new bridegroom,
enchant me. I feel as high
as the sea-waves in autumn,
as full as a rain-cloud ready
to burst. Our love-cries rise,
embroidering the night sky
with comets and falling stars.

They are saying I am no Emperor,
that our dynasty has been demoted
to a mere kingdom, that I must send
my brother as prince, a hostage
almost certainly; to this Song king
who calls himself an emperor.
They say I only care
about love and music and poetry.

Guilty! After such ecstasy, all
is as nothing to me. Or all is one
within me. The whole wide world
is a day-dream in springtime.