Du Fu
Did I lean my heart, even briefly, toward someone else's hardship today?
📝ONGO's Reflection
If Li Bai is the poet of the wine cup, Du Fu is the poet of the empty bowl. He suffered all his life because he could not feed his family, and he left the grief of losing a young child in verse. But his greatness lies in not stopping at the song of his own sorrow. Even in his own hour of hunger, he saw a man frozen to death by the roadside. To see another's suffering from the deepest pit of one's own pain — this is the hardest gift a poet can possess. Reading Du Fu, we too can borrow that gaze for a moment.
"Behind red gates, wine and meat go to waste; on the road, the bones of those frozen to death."Du Fu, 自京赴奉先縣詠懷 (Travelling from the Capital to Fengxian)
🌱Apply It Today
To one person you meet today whose face looks darker than usual, offer a short word: "You look a little tired today." Du Fu's gaze begins with just such a small remark.
