Classic Poem

Ever since Tian-bao, this silence and desolation,
fields and sheds mere masses of pigweed and bramble;
my village of a hundred households or more,
in these troubled times scattered, some east, some west;
not a word from those still living,
the dead ones all gone to dust and mire
I was on the side that lost the battle,
so I came home, looking for the old paths,
so long on the road, to find empty lanes,
the sun grown feeble, pain and sorrow in the air
All I meet are foxes and raccoon dogs,
their fur on end, snarling at me in anger
And for neighbors on four sides, who do I have?
One or two aging widows
But the roosting bird loves his old branch;
how could he reject it, narrow perch though it is?
Now that spring's here I shoulder the hoe alone,
in the evening sun once more pour water on the fields
The local officials know I'm back;
they call me in, order me to practice the big drum.
Maybe they'll assign me to duty in my own province—
but still I've no wife, no one to take by hand.
Traveling to a post nearby, I'm one man all alone;
sent to a far-off assignment, I'll be more lost than ever.
But, since my house and village are a wilderness now,
near or far, it's all the same to me.
And always I grieve for my mother, sick so long;
five years I've left her buried in a mere ditch of a grave
She bore me, but I hadn't the strength to help her;
to the end, both of us breathed bitter sighs,
A living man, but with no family to take leave of—
how can I be called a proper human being?