A Poem from Du Fu to Li Bai

Greetings,

杜 甫 Du Fu
To Li Bai at the Sky Send

A cold wind blows from the far sky....
What are you thinking of, old friend?
The wildgeese never answer me.
Rivers and lakes are flooded with rain.
...A poet should beware of prosperity,
Yet demons can haunt a wanderer.
Ask an unhappy ghost, throw poems to him
Where he drowned himself in the Milo River.

Du Fu's cottage in Chengdu where he lived in 760 during the Tang Dynasty for four years. It has three simple rooms; one for sleeping, cooking and writing. His writing room consists of a chair, desk and cup with an ink brush.

Known as the "Poet-Historian," and "Poet-Sage," Du Fu's influence has been compared to Shakespeare, Virgil, Milton, and Wordsworth. His work influenced the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho in the 17th century.

Kenneth Rexroth described Du Fu as, "the greatest non-epic, non dramatic poet who has survived in any language", and commented that, "he has made me a better man, as a moral agent and as a perceiving organism."

Peace.