Backwater

From The Spectator, 10 August, 1991

Backwater
by Su Tung-po (1036-1101)
translated by Graeme Wilson

Tonight, at Eastern Slope, I wined too well;
Half-sobered up; and then got drunk once more.
Home around midnight, bang, bang, bang at the gate
Brought no response but the house-boy's thunderous snore.
Persist? For what? I lean on my stick and listen
The sound of the river fretting its moonlit shore.

Not to to command oneself, to be shuffled around
At the whim of the world, it irks, it niggles me.
The night wears on. Wind drops. The surly river
Soothes from its snarl a rippled filigree.
I would give this arm for a boat, for a chance to wherry
My shored-in self to the widths of an open sea.