On Parting (after Tu Mu)
This much fondness numbs me.
I ache behind my drink, and cannot smile.
The candle too, hates parting,
and drips tears for us at dawn.
A non-poet friend asked why I’m dabbling in these adaptations. After all, she said, they’ve already been translated. Why do you breathe, I replied, admittedly a dissatisfying, snarky and evasive answer. So I thought about it. Why, indeed. The usual justifications apply: as exercises in diction and rhythm, it’s fun, it’s challenging. But the truth is I love these poems, these poets, and working through the pieces allows me to inhabit the poems in a way I can’t by simply reading them. And there is a hope, however feeble, of adding to the conversation a slight nuance or a bit of texture without detracting from or eroding the original.
The transliteration on Chinese-poems.com reads:
Much feeling but seem all without feeling
Think feel glass before smile not develop
Candle have heart too reluctant to part
Instead person shed tear at dawn
This first appeared on the blog in October 2014.
O at the Edges 
What you’re saying about adaptations makes perfect sense to me.
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I like to think of these as part of a greater conversation that we participate in. And it is awe-inspiring to realize that these poems are still active even after more than 1,100 years!
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I didn’t realize that the poems are that old–or should I say “of that long-standing.”
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This reader thinks that’s a fine translation/adaptation. You clarified the images, and the diction works.
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Thanks, Frank. I just try to muddle through towards a little clarity. 🙂
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Why do you breathe is just the right answer I think. (K)
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Fascinating! And you’re good at this!
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