Friday Night Poetry

Some 70 million people died in World War Two. Signs of that great struggle can still be found. Here's another Chinese poem, this one translated by Kenneth Rexroth. One reason I keep quoting the Chinese is that they wrote often more than a thousand years ago from the viewpoint of the average man or woman rather than the viewpoint of warriors and kings.


Traveling Northward


Screech owls moan in the yellowing
Mulberry trees. Field mice scurry,
Preparing their holes for winter.
Midnight, we cross an old battlefield.
The moonlight shines cold on white bones.

—Tu Fu