Poem of the Week

Return to Qiang Village

Du Fu,

translated by

Scott Dalgarno

Scruffy clouds redden the west; sun-

light, horizontal. At the familiar gate

sparrows greet the stranger

who’s covered a thousand miles.

My wife and kids dissolve in shock, a flood

of tears. Recovering, we ponder the luck

of my survival in such a time. The neighbors

raise the roof, climb the fence in sobbing

celebration. Aura of candles deep into

the dawn make it seem a hazy dream.

This late-life chapter I live in forced exile. The joy

of coming home is mixed. My darling son

strangles my knees, fearing I’ll bolt again.

I remember the days we pursued the cool,

hopping from shade to shade around the mountain

pool. The north wind whispers that winter

is coming, bringing with it a hundred worries

to weigh me down. Fortunately, the wheat

and millet are cut. Fresh water is already

filling the press with the promise of wine,

enough, I hope, to cushion my coming decline.

III

The chickens are in a lather. I chase the roosters

into the trees. It’s then I hear what disturbs them,

a knock at our wooden gate. Four, maybe five

old men want to hear of my time away. Each one

offers wine, emptying their jugs, weak and cloudy,

apologizing for the quality. All the young men

have been conscripted. The war rages and none are left

to tend the millet fields. I offer this poem as my gift

to their fathers, a tendering of my affection for them.

Done singing, I look about me. Tears thin every cup.

The Yale Review · “Return to Qiang Village” by Du Fu, translated by Scott Dalgarno

how did this translation begin for you?

“Return to Qiang Village” was the first of Du Fu’s poems to capture my attention. The translation began for me when I reflected on the poet’s astonishment at surviving a harrowing journey home in a time of civil war. It began with a desire to be true to that astonishment. I was looking to convey the urgency of the original, as well as the unique tone of each of the three distinct sections. The elements he conveys are the sheer luck of his survival, the deep and complicated connections to family and friends that fuel him, and his inescapable sense that time is short. Again and again, Du Fu confesses his smallness in light of the chaos of his times. I sought to be true to his vulnerability. That is to say, I hoped to convey some of what is between Du Fu’s striking lines.

Du Fu (712–770 CE) was a prolific Tang dynasty poet known for emotionally resonant poetry that captures the political and social concerns of his era.

Scott Dalgarno is a poet with work in APR, The Antioch Review, the Bellevue Literary Review, Cagibi, The Iowa Review, The Yale Review, and other journals. The author of Third-Class Relics, he lives and writes in Lake Oswego, Oregon, where he works on issues of justice. He can be found at scottdalgarno.org.