Lu Yu (AD 1125-1209)
On the day of Lu Yu's last sickness
a thin coffin was ready,
and two quilts to cover him,
and the gravediggers paid
their work done.
Then he started to write another poem
a short time before death,
about drinking wine again in the village —
He was working on the poem when they buried him,
so that half a line protruded from the earth
in wind and weather's hearing —
With sunlight touching the first young syllables,
the last ones flowering from a dark coffin:
“marketplace the in/drink more One”
The first three words above ground
the last ones wine in the Red Dust.
Near the village of Shanyang
in Chekiang Province…
.
by Al Purdy
from Beyond Remembering-The Collected Poems of Al Purdy. 2000