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| 8 Du Fu in Early Winter My old poetry teacher is dead and my wife plays her violin upstairs. When I sit in the basement, I pretend I walk across the desert, my teacher appearing on the other side of the rocks to show me the pictographs move if you look. I listen to the violin wail in a way no poem can. My teacher once read me a poem by Du Fu and I imagined standing on the bridge with the old Chinese poet and thinking “I am here.” His poem revealed the hands of the flowers and the mist of love that Du Fu had for the moon. My old poetry teacher is dead and my wife repeats her tune, getting it right as the notes cross the house and echo from the closed windows because, outside, the first snow is falling for Du Fu again. ...

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