At the Western Pass, wind and sand,

leafless trees, yellowing grass.

From these barren heights our guards

keep watch for the Tartar foe.

Far below, a deserted fort commands the plain,

but not a wall of the old village stands.

Only bones, thousands of bones,

heaped and bleaching in the bracken.

Who is more to blame, the treacherous Tartar

or our emperor beside himself with rage?

Obedient armies beat the drums of war,

the sun goes dark, the air smells of blood.

Recruiting officers raid the countryside—

three-hundred-sixty thousand men!

Mid cries of woe and tears like rain

the doomed conscripts are marched off.

Who will plow the fields and dig the gardens

while our sons pace the bitter mountain pass?

Don’t tell us how Li Mu once triumphed,

where soldiers have always been fed to wolves!

—Li Po (T’ang)

Translated by Taylor Stoehr

From the Fall 2007 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 24, No. 1)

© 2007 Taylor Stoehr