Written on New Year’s, Liu Changqing (300 Tang Shi #137)

At New Year’s, home thoughts grow more urgent—
Heaven’s bound is tearfully lonely.
Old age has come, I’m still a lodger—
When spring arrives, this guest moves on,
Like apes of the peaks from dawn to dusk.
Together, river willows are scenic.
Already I’m like that Changsha Tutor—
How many years from now will it be?

新年作
乡心新岁切，
天畔独潸然。
老至居人下，
春归在客先。
岭猿同旦暮，
江柳共风烟。
已似长沙傅，
从今又几年。

Written while in exile on a demotional posting waaay south in what’s now Guangdong, thus calling himself a “guest.” Idiom: scenic is literally “wind-mist,” just one of many “wind-X” idioms that mean a scenic landscape. That said, I have no clue what the line about the willows is trying to do as part of this poem. The Changsha Tutor is Jia Yi, who was banished by Han Emperor Wen into exile to a demotional posting as Grand Tutor to the child king of the client kingdom of Changsha, covering what’s now Hunan, until he was recalled four years later.

---L.