Tony Towle

The Works of Li Po

The mountain flowers are growing and in bloom,
the different insects carry on their business.
At the sound of my rambling you awake
o drunkard
and arise from the dew of the wine shop.

The thick wine is called the wise,
the clear the sage,
poured blissfully in a ditch above the stars
where my city like yours stand by a serene waterfall
and after a jugful we are couds on the eyelid of heaven.

I cannot be less precise because my words have fewer meanings;
'vessel' is a wonderful word in our language,
for as the liquor travels it is also a ship,
bearing the liquid course of the seasons.
Syntactically I am on the vessel
as on the wine curtain of the shore.