Written While Dying

 

by Brett Rutherford

     Emperor Li Yu (937 – 978 CE)

Now I am dead.
There is no other way
to write this poem
except backwards.

Because Taizong
resented my last poems
(who would not yearn
for what he has lost?) —
because I am said to be
all things considered,
a better poet.

Because I cared less
with each day’s passing,
wife torn from me,
a weeping shell of herself,
since she was raped
by the Song Emperor.

Because I will not address
that personage correctly,
because I am now called,
not former Emperor, not King,
not as Li Congjia, the name
my father gave me,
the name to which
all people and foreigners
knelt and kow-towed,
but by an epithet:
Marquis of Wei Wing
(Lord of Edicts Disobeyed). 

Now I am dead,
because my generals came
with warlike strategy,
and I dismissed them,
preferring my evenings
in the Poets’ Pavilion,
with painters and artists
who fled to me from
every other kingdom.

Now I am dead,
because my captive brother
summoned, implored,
my travel to Song’s capital,
and I went not. Instead
I sent poems and art,
the best ambassadors
of peace and accord.

Now I am dead.
No armor did I don,
no chariot ascend
when the invaders came.
I was in the temple,
composing a poem,
surrounded by monks,
incense, and prayer wheels,
when they broke in
and seized me. Where
was the magic, then?

Now I am dead,
because wise counselors
wanted me strict, cruel
and cunning, like those
who raced to crush
our borders. Refusing,
I sent them home.
Some killed themselves
in honor’s name.
It was I who killed them!

Now I am dead,
who tried to have
one woman as wife,
and her younger sister, too.
As for the two women,
one died, and then I married
the other. Is that not honorable?
Did I not carve,
with my own hand
two thousand characters
on the Empress’s tombstone?

Those who forbade my love,
and my second marriage,
I sent home to their villages
to live until their beards
touched ground.
Now their ghosts haunt me.

Now I am dead,
because I drank a cup,
an overflowing cup
of heart-warm wine,
best of the southern
vineyards, I was told.

Because my dishonored wife
put her pale hand
upon the celadon vessel
to taste it first,
and a soldier pushed
her aside and said,

“This wine is for one,
from the Emperor’s table.
The Marquis only must drink.” 

“I am not thirsty,” I said.

“The Marquis must drink.
I must say at his table
that you have tasted it,
and in full proof of pleasure,
have drained it to the dregs.”

Now I am dead,
because the willows of home
have wept two years for me;
twice have I left unswept
the tombs of my fathers;
twice have I failed to lift
up in the dead’s honor
a flagon of chrysanthemum;
and twice has the Lunar Year
come and gone in a place
that no longer has my name.

Peace be to you, Song Emperor,
and to all peoples. I am still
King of leaves and petals, Lord
of moonlight and sudden breezes.
Who will they read
a thousand years from now?

Now I —

  

What Kind of Poet?

 by Brett Rutherford

      after Li Yu, Poem 39

What kind of poet am I
    who cannot bear spring flowers
     or the flush of autumn?

What kind of poet am I
     who shuns the moon’s
          beckoning,
when all I can do
     is to ask it,
“Do you see my lost kingdom?”

What kind of poet am I
     who no longer retells
     the exploits of his father,
     the daring of ancestors,
     the courage of mothers?
Having no seal, I shall
     soon enough be nameless.

What kind of poet am I
     who can no longer adorn
     a painting with calligraphy,
     or compel a painter
     to illustrate his words?

Who cares what I think,
     or what I have suffered?
No one.

Without me, the carved
jade balcony and winding stairs
may still be there, but those
who walked them
    will be less than ghosts
if no one writes of them.

Do some back home
     still read my lines
and ask of one another
the measure of Li Yu’s pain?

How many pieces can one
be sliced into?

How many drops flow
into the Qinhuai River,
and the Yangtse too?

Those numbers ought to be
just about right.

Of Trysts Gone By

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, Poem 37

Now that I know too much
I am almost embarrassed
to watch the Spring unfold.

Flowers doing what flowers do
remind me of trysts gone by,
of acting without rhyme or reason.

The trusty willow trees shelter me.
My confidants, they have seen it all,
and they do not trouble themselves
with random love affairs.

Their green-and-gray shagginess
brushes against my weary head.
In their cool indifferent shade
I could sleep all day.

Places and Names

by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, Poem 36 

Best are the names
the places themselves tell you.
Like candles that gutter
     up and out,
or weeds borne randomly
     on errant waves,
one dream recurs.

I see the land my fathers won,
but in it are men unfamiliar,
costumes and accents wrong.
I try to introduce myself,
but I am waved away
    as a madman.

Heaven has set me adrift,
not to be known,
                        but still to know
the reason for each place’s
naming. This little wood —
can it be anything except
the "Bower Awaiting Moon"?
This westward-facing spot
is nothing if it is not
"The Shading-Flower Terrace."

Will all of Tang be truly gone
when all the names are lost?

  

Am I Awake?

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu Poem 35

Endless rain falls
     in waves and ripples.
Spring is finally retiring.

Yet I shiver beneath
     the silken coverlet,
wary of braving cold air
     before the sun’s warming.

Am I awake? Exile
     no longer,
I long for old pleasures.
As sudden as it was morn
it is evening. I lean
against the parapet,
my mountains, my rivers
clear in view.

All too easy
     was the departure in haste,
     not a moment to spare
     in backward-looking —
yet how it ached to see the sights
    coming, one by one,
as the old places returned to view.

Beyond the hill, the flood waters
     gather up all the refugee
     petals, rushing them away
as Spring invades and conquers.

Where does Spring die, I wonder —
on Earth, or in the Heavens?

Then up I sit, and rub my eyes.
This is no house of mine.

No scrolls, no paintings, no wall
filled top to bottom with poetry!
Again and forever, those dreams of home!

 

Lichen

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, Poem 34

Save sorrow for what is gone forever,
a wise one advises me. Creature
of habit that I am, everything
here depresses me. The sight
of Nature ought to soothe and heal,
but Grief is my looking-glass.

The humble lichen,
     so fond of rocks
     and branches,
ascends the neglected
     stairs as well.
I do not disturb
     its melancholy advance.

The curtain, edged
     with pearls, sways
     lazily, thin barricade
against the autumn breeze.

No one strides in
    with orders or requests,
pushing aside the cloth,
nor do soft steps
     of timid feet pause
and await my summoning.

I had a Golden Saber once;
like me and my pride,
it is someone’s trophy now.

I had a mansion of jade,
a palace of dark
     chalcedony,
pavilions too numerous
     to catalog.
Looted and desolate,
they cast long shadows
upon the Qinhuai River.

Above the headless flowers
     killed by frost,
the moon blazons
     in the transparent sky.

Horses as Fierce As Flying Dragons

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, Poem 33

Dreams hurt.
Last night I thought
I was back in my palace.
My feet knew every turn
and by-way. Nothing
was changed. Bronzes
and vases and carvings,
all were intact. Fresh
flowers adorned everything.

War drums were sounding.
Chariots flared out
     in every direction,
horses as fierce
     as flying dragons.

The breeze behaved.
The upright flowers
stood at full attention.

Who would have have called
the world that we knew,
too good to be true?

Tears

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, Poem 32

So many tears! Like rivers
on the map of China,
sideways they flow
across my furrowed cheeks.

Tears cannot tell my story;
     ink can.
Tears cannot play the phoenix
     flute; breath can.

I weep, I write, I sigh.
Still this failing heart
     refuses to break.

The Land of Wine

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, Poem 31

Wind and rain,
     more wind,
          more rain.
The curtain goes
    horizontal,
the screen
    with its dismal painting
     wobbles this way and that
     and almost tumbles.

The lamp falters.
The water-clock must be about
its business, but I hear no drips
in all this autumnal uproar.

Turning my head left,
     turning my head right,
there is no comfort:
what devil fashioned
these pillows, anyway?
Sitting or lying down,
sleep is impossible,
rest an illusion.

I shall be useless tomorrow.

Perhaps being useless
is an exile’s business.
The affairs of the world
do not require me.

I can make much ado
about dressing myself,
walk to the court
with secret agent in tow
and pretend to have
    something to say
     to one who calls himself
     my better.

And while I wait,
     in one of a dozen
     anterooms, someone
will bow and offer wine,
     a better one
than what I have here,
and after one or two cups
I shall slip away,
    forgetful of what
    my business was.

They will mock me,
but if my destiny is just
to float about haphazardly,
let me at least
be drunk on a decent
     vintage.

Separated

 by Brett Rutherford

     from Li Yu, Poem 30

No one will say
why I am not allowed
to see you. Spring broke
the day our hands last touched,
and now the Spring
is half the way to Summer.

Everything I loved
in your presence
annoys me now.
Plum blossoms fall
and pile in drifts,
blow in my face
as I brush them aside.
They are no longer
beautiful to me.

A stupid swan has come
and perched itself
on my window-sill.
What does she means
to tell me? What language
does a swan speak,
anyway? And where has it been?
Can it carry a dream to me
of you and our time together?

Here we came, a pair of exiles,
and now, from one another
exiled again, and to what end?

Remember the games we played,
the contests among the poets?
Now, if one came up and asked me,
“What is the sorrow of parting like?”

I know how to answer: 

It is the one thing
both eternal and infinite.
The sorrow of parting
is like new grass in spring;
the farther you look,
the more there seems to be.

Ninth Day of the Ninth Month

 

by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, Poem 28

In autumn, the daylight hastens away.
Red leaves pile up and clog the stairs.
The ninth day of the ninth month
has come and gone — the Double Yang
Festival. Brooms sweep the houses.
Hills groan with pilgrims’ footsteps.
Joss-merchants sell money to burn.
Chrysanthemums are crushed to make
a heady liqueur for this time only.

By now, the climbing dog rose
sheds its frail petals back at home,
painting with pink my old pavilions.
While here, the still-abundant flowers,
purple and full, perfume the garden.

I am told I have no right to complain.
Smoke from the kitchens huddles low
as thin rain damps it down. Here every
dog and exile eats his fill each day.

The first arriving swans are gathering.
In pairs, they sing sad songs in unison.
They came, I am reminded, free-willed.
I sigh, and swallow hard. Thus
it will be for me, as the gray sky drops
an exile’s bitter sorrow.

Monotony

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu Poem 27

Wood against wood,
stalk against stalk,
pounding like gongs
all day, all night.

I swear, that even
when wind diminishes,
the rattling goes on.

Beneath a moon
heartless as a block of ice,
I don a coat to walk
around the courtyard.

I scan the bamboo grove
for mischief. Miscreants
are out there; no poems
come amid the clack-clack,
rick-rack of the stalks,
the flutter-flap of leaves
like birds tethered
and trying to escape.

No one is there.
No tormentors sit
with block and clapper
charged with disturbing me.

Here, Nature abhors me.
Life may be long,
but bamboo is longer.

Night Sounds

 

by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, poem 26

I think they mean to torture me
with either silence, or sounds.
When my residence is empty
as I have no visitors at all,
the quiet of the courtyard
seems weirdly ominous.

It makes me hear
sounds no one wants,
such as the pounding
of laundry on cold stones.
Sometimes it is the wind,
which howls in this country
with unpleasant vowels.

Why are the nights so long?
Sleep is insufficient
to cover them.
Ears are worse than eyes
in a strange place.

Among the pines,
and worse, among
the rattling bamboo,
what creatures here
prowl nocturnally?

Sounds in the night
that enter my curtained
windows -- how many
belong to those
who watch and count
my every movement?

If I sound out a poem,
subversive and sad,
to whose ears
will they repeat it?

Meditation in Exile

 by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Li Yu, Poem 25

I know I should go in, now.
It is best to forget it all, better to sleep
and recall it to ghost-life; least-best
is waiting out the night here,
thinking of those who have gone.

The wind is back in the courtyard —
new wind or ever the same one? —
and the dull grass is sliced
    with new green slivers.

Spring, undeniable,  paints yellow-green
     in willow shoots.
Long I recline on the balustrade,
waving away the servant, a nay
to the tonic of the waiting teacup.

I am alone. I am not among
the endless scrolls of my old poems —
gone and lost! I mouth the words
of those I can remember — others
must be my memorial called forth
to the minds of surviving friends.
My mouth seems full of stones,
my words, choked back.

                                              All ears,
I wait for for the next west-east
fluttering amid the bamboo leaves,
wind a new moon always prompts.
The breeze, at least, still chatters on.

Away, where I am missed,
and amid those I despair of,
exactly the same sky shivers.

Rubbing their hands
     together, the pi-pa players
await my orders. What tune
can I order amid the willow rush,
the ruffle of wind in the cat-tails?
I gesture them to stillness. They bow.
The think me unmusical.
The melodies they want to play
are not the ones I know.

Someone, I see, has not removed
the hundred-year-old wine jar,
nor my ink pot and its brushes.
As for calligraphy, what is mine,
drawn with a hand that shakes,
against that cracked-ice poem
that just now melts on the lake?
Once, I would have indicated that
with but one finger, and someone
would have rushed to draw it.

On the deep, dark terrace behind me
a single candle burns, one ember
beside it, incense out of breath.

The past.   The past.   The dawn
that I am facing is solitary;
there seems scant need to undress
but to rise and re-dress again,
for whom,  or for what?

One palace is like
another palace; the same earth
turns below home and exile.
Here, there is the pretense
     of status and honor.
Who am I to complain?
I could well write
another thousand poems.

I feel in my hair the gnawing frost,
as on my brow the last snow
hovers at edge of vision
and refuses to melt.

I     will     just    sit.

But how can words come,
when thought is unthinkable?

Nightmare

by Brett Rutherford

How many faces greet you
when your grateful eyes open,
remembering the night of love?

Just one? Or, one,
and the one who resembled her,
and is now ashes?

How many feet
peep out beneath the blankets?
Pray to the gods it is not six!

[written as an interlude for the Li Yu poem-cycle]

Long Is the Sadness

 by Brett Rutherford

    after Li Yu, Poem 24

Weep, China!
     The girl who played the flute
     among the trees, and charmed
     an Emperor, is gone.
The Spring light comes seeking her
     in the royal garden,
clouds of sweet pollen, and petals
     of gold, cascade in waves,
seeking her out, and finding
     only a funeral.
Winds from the East
     that lifted me once
     now make me stoop,
unbearable now the fragrance
     it carries.

I watch the moon pass
the cut and curve of the jade window;
     waning, diminished, sliced.

Will I come to see the days
     of my misery outnumbering
the days I was allotted joy?
(Who should live so long?)

Beyond the balcony a willow
     droops with its own weight
     of leaf and branch to water,
expecting to find a companion —
hopes dashed, it only sees
     itself reflected. No wonder
we say the splendid tree weeps.

Dressed in mourning,
     one scarcely has time for love.
Each time I meet
    the one who waits for me,
it is a short as a dream.
     Haste wounds us.

We part. I am sure
there are certain words she hopes for
that I am not prepared to say,
not with so fresh a ghost
listening.

 

 

The Futile Bouquet

 by Brett Rutherford

    after Li Yu, Poem 23 

There is a forest flower
I love, found only
one week of the Spring
in just one shady wooded spot.

I go with poets there,
and painters, and each of us
attempt to catch
    that flower’s essence.

Today my servants
have brought me some:
ripped from their soil,
poor droopy things
they are, the red
already gone to orange,
the petals withering,
stalks oozing milky white.

Kidnapped flowers,
what ransom can I give,
what favor confer
on the violated forest?

A wine I know
has the same vermilion hue.
Tears of the grape? My tears
that ought to be my blood?

Send wine! Call in
some poets to console me.
Find some drear song
to fiddle me to sleep.

Life is now a misery.
Onward it carries me
eastward against my will
with the relentless floods.

 

Doubts

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, Poem 22

As everything fades,
     the cherry flowers
     are not what they were;
limp, they fall,
     fallen, they rot.

Spring is not
     what it used to be
when you loved me
     better.

They have clouded my mind
     with idle gossip;
yours, with doubt and regret.
Harming no one,
     we now harm all.

I passed beneath the gate
onto the covered porch.
The night had ended.
From here I watched
the moon slant down
upon the withered branches.

The hut was still.
No pale lamp fluttered.
I waited for you
until the dawning light
made it impossible to stay.

That night I waited,
watched, and did not enter,
you had arrived before me
and fell into
a contented sleep.

I went my way,
     turned back,
and saw you going
    the other.

I think of it now.
I never told you.

 

The Court Officials

by Brett Rutherford

“Son of Heaven!”
     “Your Majesty!”
            “Great King!”
they shouted, knelt,
and timidly approached.

The Court was dark.
Weeks of mourning,
chaos, actually.
Moths fluttered
around the silk tapestries,
the throne, untenanted,
gathered dust.

“You are here about the Rituals,”
he answered from shadow.
They could not see his face.
“Do as was always done.
Consult the oracles, lay out
the calendars of mourning.

“I would as soon hear bells
and laughter again,
street-vendor songs outside
the walls, the drums and gongs
of the theater. When mourning
ends for all, it need not end for me.”

“Son of Heaven, all will be done
as in your father’s and grandfather’s
time, and as all China has done
since the First Emperor’s time.”

He nods. He waves a hand
to dismiss them.

They do not remove themselves.
“Your Majesty!" one calls again.

“Is there more?”

                           “We beg to ask
what you mean to do
about — about the woman.”

“Who knows of this?” he asks,
in a tone of ice and danger.

“Every bird repeats it. Each branch
of the willow tree sings about it.”

“Well, then,” he sighs. “I mean
to make her Empress. Call her
Empress Zhou the Younger.”

One courtier groans, another
beats his head against the plank
he carried to make appeal.

“Oh, call her a concubine!”
one begs. “A consort, a consort!”
the other two implore.

“With her dead sister, my Empress,
she has equal rank. Why now,
should I not honor and elevate
one who is devoted to me alone?”

“Because of the gossips,
O Son of Heaven, you do not know
what calumnies they invent,
lies you invite by circumstance.”

“Explain.”

“They will make her out worse
than Empress Wu. Tales they invent
will have her murder the young price,
hating a nephew born to the throne.
They will say she lured you with magic,
used drugs and sorcery to seduce,
so that you could not tell
one woman from another.

They will say she procured poisons,
and one will come forth and say
she bought them of his neighbor
who sells those drugs and charms
that cancel wives and children.”

“She is above reproach.”

“A thousand lies will follow her
like clouds of angry gnats,
and a thousand times repeated
they will be truths to many.
Spare her and you, we beg you.
Do not elevate this woman.”

After a long pause, in which
the three officials trembled,
he stiffly ordered:

“These three things I command.
Publish the Calendar of Rituals.
Announce the elevation
     of Empress Zhou the Younger.
These things done, collect
     your pensions.

"The gossips you warn me about
are you. "

Alone in the Temple

by Brett Rutherford

      The Emperor Li Yü,
           after the death of Empress Zhou

Lord Buddha, why?

Silence.

Incense rising,

a vertical line

no breeze disturbs.

It is as though the world

stopped breathing.

That there is no answer,

is an answer.

Lord Buddha, why?

Look everywhere

inside our realm.

Are not the finest

peaks surmounted

by your temples?

Have we not carved

you into cliffs, filled

grottoes with shrines?

Do we not have as many

monks as scholars?

As many Bodhisattva

figures as soldiers?

As many stupas

as bell and drum towers?

As many prayer wheels

as chariots?

Those who would topple the last

of Tang -- they do not know you.

We fight, but of all deaths

this one death I cannot

accept with calm resolve.

She is gone! Her shroud

is even now rolled up

and carried to the chamber.

I must watch as her ashes

rise to the heavens.

Have you not taught

there is no peace

until there is no will

to war? I have no will

to war. Love was my

barricade. It fell.

The people, in loving me,

loved you, What now,

Lord Buddha, what?

Who the illusion,

you, or I?

          (Written to follow Poem 21 of my Li Yu cycle)