Sharing a Drink with Li He
Luo Fu

Stones shatter
Heaven is startled
Frightened stiff, the autumn rain freezes in mid-air
Beyond my window, I suddenly see
A traveler on a donkey arrive from Chang’an
On his back a cloth sack of
Horrifying images

Before his arrival, lines of poetry
Fell like hail
Beyond my window, I again hear
Xihe, the charioteer, tapping on the sun
Oh, such a thin scholar
So thin
He resembles an exquisite wolf-hair writing brush
His large blue gown billows in the wind
Welling into thousands of waves

I mull over quatrains, quatrains, quatrains as if
I were chewing five-spice beans
In your impassioned eyes
Is a jug of newly brewed Hua-tiao wine
From the Tang dynasty to the Song to the Yuan to the Ming and to the Qing
At last it is poured into
This small cup of mine
I try to stuff the seven-character quatrain that you are most proud of
Into a wine urn
I shake it up, then watch as the mist rises
Language dances drunkenly, rhymes clash chaotically
The urn breaks, your flesh shatters
Screeching ghosts are heard on a vast plain
The howls of wolves are carried over thousands of miles

Come, sit down, let’s drink together
On this blackest night in history
You and I are obviously not from among the run-of-the-mill
We aren’t troubled by not being included in the Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty
Of what use are the nine grades of official rank?
They are not worth bothering about

Weren’t you hung over that year?
Vomiting poetry on the jade steps of noble houses
Drink, drink up
The moon probably won’t shine tonight
For this once-in-an-eon meeting
I want to take advantage of the darkness to write you a difficult poem
Incomprehensible, then let them not understand
Not understand
Why after reading it
We look at each other and burst out laughing