Evening Go Out and Come Back Through the Side Door
夜 出 偏 门 还 三 山
月 行 南 斗 边
人 归 西 郊 路。
水 风 吹 葛 衣
草 露 湿 芒 履。
渔 歌 起 远 汀
鬼 火 出 破 墓。
凄 清 醒 醉 魂
荒 怪 入 诗 句。
到 家 夜 已 半
伫 立 叩 蓬 户。
稚 子 犹 读 书
一 笑 慰 迟 暮。
Ye Chu Pian Men Huan San Shan
Yue xing nan dou bian
Ren gui xi jiao lu.
Shui feng chui ge yi
Cao lu shi mang lu.
Yu ge qi yuan ting
Gui huo chu po mu.
Qi qing xing zui hun
Huang guai ru shi ju.
Dao jia ye yi ban
Zhu li kou peng hu.
Zhi zi you du shu
Yi xiao wei chi mu.
Evening Among Many Mountains, They Go Out and Come Back Through the Side Door
The moon travels to the side of the southern Big Dipper
People return along roads from the southern outskirts.
Water and winds blow through their kudzu-vine clothes
Silvergrass shoes moist from the dewy grasses.
Fishing songs arise from remote sandbars and shoals
Phosphorus fires have gone out around broken and abandoned tombs.
The mood is cold and dreary for the clear and sober
On uncultivated lands strange poetic lines emerge.
Already near evening, only partial families have arrived
Others stand still for a long time at doors made of grass.
The youngest children like to have books read aloud to them
One smile can comfort them in the twilight.
Notes:
Phosphorus fires: During the summer months, phosphorus fires often burned in rural cemeteries as human bones spontaneously ignited from the tombs being broken, abandoned and ignored. A metaphor for how this community had not well attended in keeping their cemetery in good order for their ancestors.