This etching was made to go with my poem,
"Du Fu Revisited" originally published in
the magazine, _Ship of Fools_. It will be part of a
very limited-edition, leather bound, illustrated book
of poetry. Du Fu was an eighth century Chinese poet,
and my poem is a loose transliteration of a prose translation
of one of his poems that I used as a jumping-off point.
Here is the poem:
Du Fu Revisited
Along the shore line
fine grasses
sway.
The ship's mast
towers
into the solitary night.
Stars
settle over
the wild, flat lands
the ship once passed.
The moon may
leap
over this great, black, flowing river
but the ship will never sail again.
How do I make another start?
I am to old
to quit
these offices I've held.
Floating,
floating
on a river of
forgetfulness:
one seagull,
the moon.
Robert Simola
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