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PATRICK COLM HOGAN, Affective Space and Emotional Time

Even as he felt the flooding waters rise.
Why must I climb up the look-out,
Hoping for a glimpse of my own spouse?

At sixteen, my lord traveled far away.
Qú embankment,
mounds of the rippling Yù,
the sixth month, June,
impossible to touch you.
The sorrowful cries of monkeys
descend from heaven.
Before the door, footprints; your parting, slow.
One by one, they grow
green moss. Something so deep
cannot be swept away.
Falling leaves. Autumn winds. Too early.
In the ninth month, yellow butterflies
Flutter in couples through the grass of the west garden.
Seeing them sickens my heart.
Sitting, sad and worried;
rosy cheeks turn pale with age.
Sooner or later,
you will come down the Three Wishes River.
Write home beforehand.
We will welcome each other—don’t say it’s too far—
Even the three hundred miles to Long Wind Sands.

This is an instance of the ‘abandoned woman’ genre of Chinese po-
etry (see Cai “Introduction,” 2). It concerns a young woman whose
husband has gone away, presumably on business, and who is waiting
for his return. Like much Chinese poetry, it makes extensive use of
secondary meanings, which I have in part tried to convey in the trans-
9
lation. The entire genre is focused on space and time, both of which
appear as highly emotional. The various spaces and times of the

9 On the importance of secondary meanings, see Ashmore 183.

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