1084 - On Setting A Migrant Goose Free - Po Chu-I (Bay Juyl) (772-846)

Translated by David Hinton

Snows heavy at Hsan-yang this tenth-year winter,

river water spawns ice, tree branches break and fall,

and hungry birds flock east and west by the hundred,

a migrant goose crying starvation loudest among them.

Pecking through snow for grass, sleeping nights on ice,

its cold wings lumber slower and slower up into flight,

and soon it’s tangled in a river boy’s net, carried away

snug in his arms, and put for sale alive in the market.

Once a man of the north, I’m accused and exiled here.

Man and bird, though different, we’re both visitors,

and it hurts a visiting man to see a visiting bird’s pain,

so I pay the ransom and set you free. Goose, o soaring

goose, rising into clouds—where will you fly now?

Don’t fly northwest, that’s the last place you should go.

There in Huai-hsi, rebels still loose, there’s no peace,

just a million armored soldiers long massed for battle:

imperial and rebel armies grown old facing each other.

Starved and exhausted, they’d love to get hold of you,

those soldiers, The’d shoot you down and have a feast

then pluck your wings clean to feather their arrows.