Six Short Poems (5) Du Fu The bamboo shoots The climbing plants near the floor in the roof are pushing through have pierced the eaves my wall And the ground And the river the sunny ground the silvery river is full of wisps is full of water plants' thready leaves like soft hair 杜甫 绝句六首·其五 舍下笋穿壁,庭中藤刺檐。 地晴丝冉冉,江白草纤纤。
With the fifth poem in the series, Du Fu is back on much firmer ground. The spring has come, and life is tearing through his house. Both the land and the water are throbbing with new growth. The echoes are plain to see.
A house overrun with vines and with bamboo shoots are poking through is a symbol of decay as much as new life- possibly the most depressing scene I’ve seen in the US was an elementary school in Gary, IN with a tree branch growing out of a window and the sign which used to bear announcements reading “Goodbye (school name)”.
Is this what I’m supposed to be seeing here?
Similarly to number 4, should those last two lines be the other way around, or do they merge with one another (and does "wisps" need an apostrophe)?