The River-Merchants Wife: A Letter

 After Li Po

While my hair was still cut straight 
 across my forehead
I played at the front gate, pulling
 flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing
 horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with
 blue plums. 
And we went on living in the village of 
 Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or 
 suspicion. 

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never
 looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling, 
I desired my dust to be mingled with
 yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river
 of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise 
 overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went 
 out,
By the gate now, the moss is grown, 
 the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in 
 wind.
The paired butterflies are already 
 yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the
 narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
 As far as Cho-fu-sa.

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