Liu laments the material of the state
No one is taking care of the trees
A Hard Road to Walk (2): Pillars of the Nation Liu Zongyuan The hatchets of the Bureau of the Land Encircle mountains in their thousands, And by official order, all that stands Is to be logged, each beam and billet. They raze lush forests to the naked mud, From ten trunks fallen, they select just one. A hundred oxen yoked to mighty carts Will snap the doubled shafts before they’re done. Now trunks ten thousand round, a thousand high, Are scattered on the road to block our way, Felled east and west as wildfires ignite. No tiny twig or budding branch can stay, As footsteps swarm through boulders and inclines: These pillars of the nation were hacked down Before they had the chance to reach their prime, Our hills became bare crags of ragged stone. The armoury of Jin, the Boliang Palace blaze, The sinews of our state destroyed by fire, The Saint of Carpenters turns in his grave, His toil, like ours, cremated on the pyre. Gentlefolk, do you not see? Across the southern wilds, upright trees Are sparse. The patient cultivation that they need Is not Even spoken of in times like these.
This second entry in Liu’s complaint series is depends on a controlling metaphor that is not mentioned in the poem itself because it is so well-known: human resources are building materials. When Liu writes mournfully of forests being cut down and no planting being done, his contemporary readers would understand immediately that he was in fact suggesting the educated people of the country were not being given the career opportunities and support that they needed.
其二
虞衡斤斧罗千山，工命采斫杙与椽。
深林土剪十取一，百牛连鞅摧双辕。
万围千寻妨道路，东西蹶倒山火焚。
遗余毫末不见保，躏跞石间 壑何当存。
群材未成质已夭，突兀硣豁空岩峦。
柏梁天灾武库火，匠石狼顾相愁冤。
君不见南山栋梁益稀少，爱材养育谁复论。