Woman of Spring

by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Li Yü, Poem 9.

Over the water
    the East Wind blows.
Over the hills
     the Sun holds on
a little longer.

Thanks to Spring,
I have more leisure time,
more hours for love
    and poetry.
Look: petals everywhere!
I leave them where they fall.

The drinking cups
     my artist friends abandoned,
tipped this way and that
by calligraphers and drummers,
flutists and lutenists,
some pink, some plum,
some celadon – mine
is the blue one, there —
their very scattering
around the old Zun vessel
empty now of wine:
this is a painting, too.

Somewhere a woman,
woman beyond empress,
lover or concubine,
visible to me only,
wakes from her long sleep.
She, too, is grateful
for the sun’s long days.
The false peach face
she put on all winter
is faded now. No servant
comes to attend
    to her appearance
and correct her unruly
hair-knot. Heedless
even of what she is wearing,

this woman, nameless to me
and not of my retinue or court,
goes where she wishes. Her hand
seems to bless the bright land.
Upon a placid lake she views
her own face and blushes not.
Will she come back, alone,
at dusk, to tell me everything?

If I were painting this,
     I would place here there,
half-in, half-out of the pavilion,
arms and elbows
leaning across the balustrade.

Will she come as I bid her?
Will she take wine, or bring me some?
Will she at last, whisper
     her name into my ear?