What Du Fu* might write today
my energy has ebbed and sobbed away
my grey beard straggles towards mortality
and war is raging everywhere on earth
where are the birds ?
over half the animals have died
mountains have been cut in two
or removed completely
great gorges have been drowned
and refugees are fleeing heat and genocide
*China's greatest poet, living when Beowulf was composed,
during the T'ang period.
Note: Scholars and academics should never attempt to translate poetry;
they are way too tied, too literal, too stuck in academic mud and literary mire.
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