Day's End

Oxen and sheep were brought back down
long ago, and bramble gates closed. Over
mountains and rivers, far from my old garden,
a windswept moon rises into clear night.

Springs trickle down dark cliffs, and autumn
dew fills ridgeline grasses. My hair seems
whiter in lamplight. The flame flickers
good fortune over and over – and for what?

Tu Fu (712-770), Trans. by David Hinton, The Selected Poems of Tu Fu, A New Directions Book, 1988, p. 93.