Visiting the Dowager

 by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Li Yü, poem 14

What does this old woman know
     that I do not?
I am Emperor of Everything
     but cannot translate why

her hair, already streaked with gray,
falls to her shoulder in disarray,
or why the furrow between
her eyebrows is deeper yet
than what it was before.

What cause has she
to be unhappy?
She has her own servant,
an out-of-the-way
pavilion well-situated.
She wants no company.
Many are unaware
she is still alive.
Comfort surrounds her.
I pay my respects
at suitable intervals.

Putting aside the gifts
I brought for her —
green tea, a scroll
with my new poems,
and a fine crackle-glaze
vase with dragons —

I aim a gaze, quizzical
and open my hands,
imploring her. Instead
of addressing me,

she leans one cheek upon
one opened hand, pale
as a bamboo shoot,
and then inclines her head,
eyes shut,
toward the residence.

Word came to her just now,
as she leaned over the balcony.
Servants below have passed
it all to one another in a string
of echoes. Through tears she says:

“Son of my son,
go to the Empress —
your child has died.”

 

The Forbidden Palace

 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.

Down South (Revision)

by Brett Rutherford

 In Li Yü's 12th poem, he thinks about how, far in the south of China, spring was already well underway. I did my own version of this poem already in 2013, so here it is with only a couple of minor changes.

DOWN SOUTH

After Li Yü, Poem 12

Down South, they know what to do with springtime.
There, when my thoughts turn away
from duty and empire, I imagine myself,
where the spring is already well in progress.

Now every lake floats the pleasure boats,
the er-hu fiddles hum like bees, flute girls
exchange shy looks with the young scholars.
The green-faced rivers are drunk with willows,
towns dust-clogged with trees' yellow catkins.
More flowers bloom than eye or hand can capture.

Busy are those who watch this blossoming,
trying in vain with brush to draw it,
so quickly is it here and gone.
Busier still are their sleepless nights
when one beside another they lay
entwined, and the high stars call them.

2013, 2022 rev.

Sweeping the Tombs

 by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Li Yü, Poem 11

So many trees above,
almost no sky. Lazy,
I linger alone in the hut
the caretaker lives in.
Ancient pines moan,
whisper my father’s name,
and his, and his.

This early April night
might go on forever. Warm now,
a moment later I am shivering.
Cold nights will soon be over.

The Feast of Qingming
ended just yesterday.
With my own hands I swept
the tomb of my father,
and his, and his.

Others swept clean of leaves
and sand and pebbles,
the graves of imperial uncles,
of consorts whose names
nobody remembers,
and of several dread dowagers
whose ghosts demanded
     extra incense
and more circling 'round
as the prayers went up.

Ancestors appeased,
the earth is free
to mark the end of Spring.

The out-of-focus moon
is its own ghost tonight.
Clouds roll, and down the slope
a breeze torments
the budding peach and apricot.

Who is impatient for summer?
And who, down there,
sits on a swing and chatters,
laughing and gossiping?

My heart is one with myself,
but for my land and its people,
ten thousands threads of thought
go out to who knows where
for who knows what response. 

Even the Son of Heaven
cannot find room enough
to untangle one small web
of one night’s thoughts.

Given the whole world
to unravel it, I still would not
have any idea
what I am supposed to do.

Those below earth
and in the sky, lend me
at least, if nothing else,
a calm demeanor.

 

Making Love to the Empress

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yü, Poem 10

She was ready, but I could hardly wait.
I burst into her chamber, just as the last
of her preparations for love were underway.
I caught her fanning the censer
so that more sandalwood would blow
my way. She laughed, and that lilac-bud
of a little tongue circled her cherry lips
and moistened them. Before I could
turn to embrace her, one arm took up
the lute, and in her lap it went, a guard
against my haste. She tuned, oh, quickly!
to pretend to tune when she had tuned
before! and this to cool my ardor.
Forth the clean song issued –
ah, swan and peony, dove and cherry! —

I knelt to listen, and to aim
my upward-looking eyes into hers,
turned down to frets and fingering
(small darts of desire I thought I saw,
not just in melody,
but in the slight tremble she added
to every falling note.) A scent,
she must have meant to madden me,
rose and then faded from sleeves of gauze.
Why trick me with chemistry
when you have already conquered China?

And so we drank, and soon her cup
was tinged with wine, and fringed
with the hue of abducted cherry.
At last, the pi-pa put aside, the song
having reached its triple ending,
she lay there stretched, all limbs in view
upon the silk embroidered bed.
Oh, what is modesty, when thunder strikes
and blinds the eyes, unbearable!

When my sight cleared, and what I saw
I saw again, she parted her lips, and
from her mouth a cascade of red petals,
blew up and out. I nearly fainted.

 

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?

  

 

The Floating Things

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yü, Poem 8

The name of a thing
is not the thing.

A jade tree stands
at courtyard's front,
yet leaves that drop from it
are not hard stones
that can be carved
into dragons and lions.

They say the grass
is strewn with gems
when frost kisses it.
I reach for them
and my wet hand
is none the richer.

"To flower" means
making something new,
yet wilted peonies,
and stiff chrysanthemums
shame the garden,
like crones who came
to beg, and never left.

The moon, they say,
is full again.
Was it not full before?
Is this year's light
that shines from it
a newer thing, or just
the same old radiance,
shed from a tattered robe
in the night sky?

And if a thing's attributes
are not themselves
things in themselves,
moon just moon,
and flowers just flowers,
what thing is Youth
if pulled apart
from years and bodies?

Can Heaven grant us
this thing we most crave:
to age not
and to be young forever?

 

 

Making Spring Happen

 by Brett Rutherford

after Li Yü, Poem 7

The sound of the little goat-skin drum
makes me want to write poetry.

Fools wait for the falling blossoms
before they say that Spring has come.
To find Spring, you must go early
and walk to the fields in search.
To love a flower that has bloomed
already, is to miss the flowering.

My love presents my favorite cup
with a supple hand. I see
no thumb. The blue-glazed
porcelain surrounds
an inner whiteness, a wine
so pure it has no color.

Is Spring delayed
if we drink and linger?
Does the Forbidden Garden
require the Emperor
to bless its blooming?

Girl, let us drink ourselves silly!
Just as my poem will come
to the beat of a little drum,
the buds and flowers, too,
leaning against the palace,
will listen and follow.

 

Dancing on Autumn Leaves

 by Brett Rutherford

Adapted from Emperor Li Yü, Poem 6

She has come, as I bid her,
to the unruly pavilion
where leaves and fallen petals
carpet her footsteps.

The sun is but three hours up
but still the Lovely One arrives,
a row of sleepy dancers
behind her,
suppressing laughter
as they move to no music,
but to the breeze itself,
the sway of pine branches.

I clap my hands.
She is a little drunk
from last night's merriment.
Her golden hairpin falls
and another must bow
to sweep it up for her.
Not quite so sure
of this step or that,
no tile or square to guide her,

she pretends to smell
an untouched flower,
     and just as well,
     as it is withered.
Fumbling, she tries again,
the wrong foot forward,

while I delight to hear
small feet unsure of step,
on autumn leaves arranged
by Master Wind.

Somewhere a flute and drum
strike up in another palace
(some being called
to early breakfast!)
Not for me, these sounds!
Shuffle, crackle,
slide, and spin,
whirl, little slippers, my
pantomimes of whim!

 

Crybaby

by Brett Rutherford

By the age of six,

I was programmed to cry.

A loud noise would do it.

A father's bruising slap,

most certainly, and so many

that my memory is wiped.

But this I recall,

a war of wills. One slap

on face or bottom

and my mother was rid of me

as I wailed and ran.

One day I read,

in the only book around

about "childish things"

and putting them aside.

So I walked up to her

and said, "Never again.

will you make me cry."

"You little brat! Just like

your father!" Slap! Slap!

I reeled. I bit my lip,

Tears came. I whimpered.

But I did not cry. Not then,

and never after. Self,

sovereign and free, I was.

Big House, Rent Cheap

 by Brett Rutherford

Come right on in.

You can rent the house cheap.

Set back from the road the way it is,

no one will bother you.

School bus picks up right there.

Most folks from hereabouts

keep to themselves. They'll be

no bother to you at all.

Haunted? No. Old Doctor Jones --

or so he called his-self -- he was

the last tenant, but now he's gone

for life to the worst kind of place.

But never you mind about that.

Let's do the tour.

Good porch, good bricks, good stairs,

as you can see, original

from back in the Eighteen-Nineties.

Parlor so wide

you could swing a cat,

sliding glass doors -- not sure

if they still work. Marble!

that's marble on the mantel, yes!

There's just one room

you'll want to stay out of.

The one in back, windows

all boarded up.

There's a funny chair in there,

and all those medicine bottles.

That's where he did the stuff

that got him in trouble.

You'll need your water

for drinking carried in,

just so you know everything.

Some springs near here

are free to fill up from.

You can bathe and wash

with what is here, I guess,

but I wouldn't drink.

The well is tainted.

One time I looked down

with a light and I saw

a lot of rubbish there

and something that seemed,

if you squinted,

like little arms and legs.

You'll be left alone, for sure.

Except some nights

a woman or girl will knock

and will keep on knocking

until she gives up and goes away.

You won't want to answer.

Awakening in Early Autumn

 by Brett Rutherford

(Adapted from Emperor Li Yü, Poem 5, to the tune of "Hsi Ch'ian Ying")

As my eyes open,
     the morning moon,
     pale crescent, sets.
Ashes remain;
     the incense smoke is gone.
Cold, too, the coals
     beneath the brazier --
I must wait for my tea.

Calling no one, I rest
     on this pillow and that,
remembering --

Who was I with? what
     was her name?
No matter! Right now
I have a craving
     for the scent of hay.

 Listen!
Off in the sky somewhere,
     swans weakly call.

Above me,
     on the lattice-work
     of cherry, the orioles
          hungry, unsatisfied,
dart off to fuller branches.

Chrysanthemums, those
     drooping dowagers,
          fade and fall.
No one is up. Later,
these garden embarrassments
will vanish, be sure!

Red maple leaves
     and desiccated petals
litter the enameled floor
     and clog the courtyard.

Sweet autumn carpet,
     crispèd and melancholy:
I shall have it left unswept.

I want to watch what
     the feet of dancers
          do to them.

 

At the Door

 by Brett Rutherford

The Mennonite minister,
persistent, soul-saver,
sniffing the unsaved
in our unruly house,
knocks at the door again.
It is his third attempt.

I peer out, as screen
door is the only thing
between me and his
elder-beard eminence.

"Are your parents home?"
he asks dismissively;
no child alone
is worth his trouble.

I am brimful of movies,
Sinbad and flying saucers.
"You see those marks
on the hillside up there?" —

"Yes, boy, what of them?"—

"Those are the tracks
of the Cyclops. It came down
this morning and ate
my mother." — 

"Is your father home, then?" — 

"See that scorch mark
in front of the garage?
That's all that's left
of my father
when the death-ray took him." —

"Now see, here, boy --
to lie is a sin. Besides,
I can hear their voices."

From out the living room
the shouting rises.
"Son of a bitch! Bastard!"
my mother shouts.
"What kind of man — "
"You are my wife!"
he bellows back.
"Son of a bitch! Bastard!"
she yells again.

"Oh, well!" mutters
the bearded Anabaptist.
"I’d best come back
another day."