A Favorite Poet

I first met the poetry of Tu Fu almost sixty years ago when I was teaching at Berkeley Prep in Tampa and one of the students (hi, Evan) lent me his copy of Chinese poems, translated by Kenneth Rexroth.

I soon acquired my own copy and I still love the poetry, especially that of Tu Fu.

By the Winding River

Every day on the way home from

My office, I pawn another 

Of my Spring clothes. Every day

I come home from the river bank

Drunk. Everywhere I go, I owe

Money for wine. History

Records few men who lived to be

Seventy. I watch the yellow

Butterflies drink deep of the

Flowers, and the dragonflies

Dipping the surface of the

Water again and again.

I cry out to the Spring wind, 

And the light and the passing hours,

We enjoy life such a little 

While, why should men cross each other?

                           Tu Fu