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. "

War Story

by Brett Rutherford

Warned not to pay mind

to the old man

in the wheelchair

when his eyes went funny,

I listened anyway.

"Hungry?" he said.

"I'm never hungry

the way I was

when we got lost

on the Eastern Front.

"Russians swept in,

we, after. We chewed

on roots and leaves

as we hid in the forest.

We watched a house,

a one-room hovel,

as puffs of smoke

went up, then died.

"Gunshots we heard

in the dark,

and when we looked

at sunrise, the door

to the place was open.

Two bodies lay side

by side in the dirt.

"We waited. We waited.

So famished we almost

crawled, at last we dared

go to the farmhouse.

"That smell. A pot —

steam rose from it

when we lifted the lid.

'Soup,' I shouted,

'My God! It's soup!

Cabbage and potatoes,

onions and meat!'

"I put the ladle in.

I lifted up.

It was a human foot

at the bottom.

"Young man:

we ate it anyway."

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)

The Interruption

by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yü, poem 21

He had made
a new dress for her,
and things to match:
light-colored green her gown
silk thin as gauze,
head-band a string of clouds
of gleaming mother-of-pearl,
the necklace of jade beads
which she bites playfully
instead of letting them drop
to grace her girlish
figure. Why does she frown?

He has done everything for her
that a secret lover can. More
is impossible. Old wives frown,
and ministers find texts
that would condemn them.
And what is better, after all,
than the love that is not
allowed? Autumn has come;
with longer nights, they could
stay together longer.
Why does she hesitate?
She has not even thanked him.

What woman else
would be so dressed
and undressed by her lover?

This is a new spot, not far
from the Imperial gardens.
It is more dangerous for them,
and all the more delicious.
A tall tree, uncommon,
drops yellow fruit unknown
beyond the tropics.
One could hear them fall.
Peeled, they yield
erotic fragrances.

Just as the Emperor reaches
to embrace his slave and idol,
the door bursts open, a man
in shadow lunges in,
then kneels. Li Yu
recognizes Counselor Lin.

“Rise!” he says. “How dare you
interrupt me here?”

“Your M-Majesty!” the man stutters.
He does not look at the woman.

“Who knows that I am here?”

“Those sworn to protect you
always know where you are.
Would you not wish it so?”

“I wish to have secrets,”
the Emperor shouts.
“Are you not a man yourself?”

“The Empress knows all,”
Lin ventures to tell him.
“She has known for a week!”

At this, a small shriek
issues from the cringing girl.
She removes the head-band,
the string of jade. 

“Majesty, I have known you
since the day of your birth.
And so it is that I am asked
to be the one to tell you …”

“To tell me, what?”

“That Empress Zhou
your queen and ours,
was found dead an hour ago.”

 

The Beloved Speaks ("The Assignation")

 by Brett Rutherford

    after Li Yü, poem 20

The flowers were bright
     (and might have lit my way like lanterns)
but the moon was diffused in light mist.
Cool, but not too cold,
that was the best night to go to my lover.
Trembling I trod the perfumed stones,
step upon step amid the night-blooms.
I held in one hand the golden-threaded shoes,
in the other his scroll of urgent summoning.

South of the newly-painted hall,
in the appointed place I met him.
His face was turned away and upward
as though he searched the moon's face,
or with his hawk-fierce eye, some dove
asleep on a still and leafy branchlet.

At first, I leaned against him, shivering;
my pale arms could not encompass
the sweep of his cloaked broad shoulders.
He made a sound that might have been
my name, or merely sighed, exhaling.
I said, “I cannot come as often now,
so tonight you must love me twice as hard.” 

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.

  

Waiting for Her

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yü, poem 18

The rain falls so hard, I squint
and cannot uncurl my eyebrows.
The red petals, undone, are washed
away in streams and rivulets
until I cannot see them.
Spring floods are underway.

Streams will be high,
some paths, unpassable.
Even when rain is done,
I hear nothing.
The copied key inside
undoes the one her captors
made to hide her. Free,
she can move like a ghost
on any moonless night.

No sign of her. Incense has burned
down to the nub and seal. The light
of my night-candle is nearly gone.
How much longer? What agony
that if I go to sleep, she comes
to me anyway, but cold, serene,
as thin as a cloud, untouchable.

The Prisoner

 by Brett Rutherford

     from Li Yü, poem 17

I have found her! As in a sad tale,
an evil fairy prevailed.
The world’s most beautiful woman
is confined to a room so narrow
two arms can almost touch
the heavy and well-planked walls.

A tiny terrace extends from it,
and there I saw her at last,
leaning at risk of a fall
over the balustrade, too high,
bare rocks below a certain death
to anyone foolish enough to jump.
All this, and on the palace grounds!

I found the door, concealed
within a grotto, and there she stood!
Food there was, and a tiny brazier,
all the best and the finest tea.
She had fine garments here,
all the jewels one could wish for,
even a small bronze Bodhisattva:

not a cell, like one
a Buddhist nun
or monk would occupy,
but a doll-house
pavilion for one.

Her rival did not intend it so,
but it was a temple to our passion.
O narrow bed! All pillows thrown aside,
she drew me quietly there. We stood,
we knelt, we melted like ingots
in the fire that purifies. I held the key
to the room in my hands. She took it.
We laughed, and planned our future.
We looked at one another, and now I knew
what a conspiracy was, and what its vows.

But as for here and now,
the bed just wide enough for one,
is also wide enough for two.

The Empress, Alone

 

by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yü, poem 16

She has given up waiting.
In lamplight, her face
will not even fill a mirror:
a sliver of brow and cheek
glow pale, like the new moon’s
sickly crescent.
                           To do her hair,
with that elaborate coif
of cicada and phoenix,
that once so pleased him,
the jade pin, and the silver
one, lay ready on her table.
She picks them up.
She puts them down.

What is the use?
He is watching somewhere,
or someone is watching
on his behalf.

"Tell me: Is the Empress unhappy?"
"Tell me: Does she bother
to make herself presentable?"

The lazier she grows,
the more disheveled she is,
the less he is likely
to come to her.

Can she give him
another heir?
Does she want to?
No one even asks.

The double curtains
that brought him unannounced
so many evenings
into her chamber,
are as still as stone.

Her eyes dart up and out
to the palace and its terraces.
No lights. All are asleep.
He did not choose her.
He did not choose anyone.

He will not come. 

As the flower fades,
as the fickle wind
goes where it wills,
all must change without her.

When a wheel turns,
the axle is compelled to follow,
as it draws up water
from the golden well.

Will she drink,
or will she leave the cup
unemptied?

It is better to have wine,
and to wake up forgetful.
Will the morning sun care
that she begged for Spring?

Worrying is worse
than any sickness.

The Other Woman

by Brett Rutherford

      after Li Yü, poem 15

The cherry petals came too late;
they carpet the steps,
but the Empress does not notice them.

I sit by the bed and tend
    the covered brazier;
its fire is almost gone
    and the tea already made
is lukewarm now.
No matter, for she has taken none.

A year already since grief arrived.
Each day that dawns
without the young prince's laughter
is as sad as the one before.

Being beautiful for me,
or for her own pleasure
seems a thing of the past.
Her face looks wrong,
the double-knotted hair
off-kilter; her eyes
are almost blank,
like the thin clouds
that mark a gloomy day.
Dried tears spot-stain
her vermilion vest.

My back is turned.
Why do I yearn so bitterly
for the younger face
that is the same face?
Why do I think of her
as I day-dream
at the window lattice?