Facing Snow

Creme, Tara

About the work

This piece, which began as 3 sketches for the 2019 CoMA Midwinter Composing Course, is inspired by the poem Facing Snow by the 8th Century Chinese poet Du Fu.  There are various translations and I have taken lines from several ones for inspiration. The poem evokes an unsuccessful attempt by the government to recapture Chang’an city from rebels, and the bleak landscape and grief that battle leaves in its wake.

Facing Snow (Du Fu)

After the battle many ghosts cry,

Worry and grieve alone old man

Ragged clouds are low amid the dusk

Snow floating quickly on the whirling wind

The ladle’s cast aside the cup not green

The stove remains a fiery red

To many places news is broken

I sit, but cannot read my books for grief.

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