1972

Jessica’s shoulders gleamed

her torso wrapped in a warm towel

posed on a wooden table

while a kettle steamed

still damp from her bath

legs astride dangling by the dowel

she had auditioned for a TV series

outside in the street

the edge of a shilling

scraped a Rolls Royce

as a photographer created

mise-en-scene

a scratch left a scar 

on not just any car

that door opened onto luxury

a slight scratch on its paint

Jess would notice if she got in

a few years before

Blow Up was showing

in the cinema, in London

when hot pants were in style

photography was in

Jess got the part

Bob Ellis photographed rock bands

young men were in London

back from Vietnam

Nixon and Kissinger

bombs, defoliants, war

when Sen had the idea

of translating Chinese poems

and I helped him

revise them

then took them to Roughside

where I worked on them more

*

I was alone at Roughside walking the moor

atop the crags over abandoned quarry shafts

with a view towards Smales several miles further

a short-eared owl swooping to stop nearer approach,

towards owlets out of their nest on Roughside moor.

descending the steep slope to the banks of the Cleugh

on sunny days though grass was dry to lie upon

its roots were damp with dew if your fingers felt there.

sound didn’t carry once you stepped over the edge,

down among memories of what happened before.

towards a gnarled and stunted leafless tree bereft

by the banks of a stream running through a ravine

past an untended spring aware only of silence

back at Roughside

a view from the stone cottage window 

across saplings not high enough then to spoil the views

of tree lined Chirdon Burn or Stonehaugh Crag

overlooking an ash tree thrice as tall now as then

seldom movement below in the valley beyond

except birds, deer, an adder disturbed.

at night one lamp two miles away

an unfriendly farm beyond The Bower

otherwise, darkness 

except moonlight

starlight

and Li Po wrote:

A jug of wine         among flowers 

in the moonlight      nobody close

so I raised my cup to the bright moon

bade it drink with me

just the three of us

bright moon     my shadow     and me

shadows only imitate

the moon cannot comprehend

in spite of that we were happy

you must enjoy life in Spring

I sang   the moon listened

I danced   my shadow capered about

we were all      strangers once

now    we are such good friends

we drink    we laugh

we laugh    we drink

though we’ll part

we'll meet once more

I raise my cup to the bright moon

to journey beyond time

*       

            

working from an anthology

of an earlier tradition

translated by Sen

rearranged by Russell

a process of endless revision 

admiring the brushwork

of admired court poets 

only a copier not a copyist

once there was music

once there were friends

we didn’t feel outdone by Dylan

less popular than McKuen

we were all friends

once upon a time

back then

*

Now in these times of strife*

famines follow disasters

lands unploughed and wasted

our inheritance goes empty

brothers   sisters   are drifting

going east going west

while this war continues 

they cannot meet   or

direct their steps home

where doors bang in the wind

gardens lie ruined

they are my flesh and blood

yet they drift down strange roads

dragging their lonely shadows

through far countries

unable to lean on a friend

like a solitary bird

blown thousands of miles

like uprooted grass

scattered in the wind

I am alone

cut off from home

now we all look up at the moon

in five different places

the same thought clouds our eyes

and we weep

                        Po-Chu-Yi

T'ang Dynasty

translated by David Sen, Dick Russell

Published in 2nd Aeon, Wales, 1971

                        and in Chapman, Dick Russell issue, Vol III. No. 4, 1975

Dick Russell (C) Richard M Russell

                     2014