Tu fu, an exile in Berlin, writes poetry some mornings in a small cafe
by Nissim Lebovits
Nissim is a second-year MCP (‘24) from Philadelphia. He studies environmental planning and data at Weitzman and tries to make space for writing in his free time.
Because the body is a shard
of bone-white porcelain, a man writes
‘Onion shoots on a cool spring morning.’
Writes ‘onion shoots’ and not ‘the night rain
is an ache, this city
a permanent bruise.’
As if the pen could resurrect, the windows
be anything but an empty mirror. As if his hair
weren’t a crisp image
of pain and lead his unending hymn.
& the soles of his feet are still stricken
with the dust of his north. & this city tries
daily to peel shut the skins
of his eyes. Says surrender.
Says submit.
Because the body is a house
of exile, a man writes
‘Onion shoots on a cool spring morning.’
Poet’s Note:
Tu Fu, considered among the greatest of the classical Chinese poets, was forced into exile in the 8th century CE by what remains the bloodiest revolution in Chinese history. In this poem, I imagine him not in China, but a refugee in contemporary Berlin, subject to the convulsions of our century in which more than 1% of the world’s population is currently displaced. I was interested in exploring his sense of place: how this would be inflected by his uprootedness; how his real experiences of an unfamiliar city would map onto the imagined cities of literature; and whether, for him, literature would serve as an adequate homeland in exile—or only serve to emphasize the tragedies of homelessness.