Missing My Little Son
Song lyrics
Robins sing in morning chorus
Notes that cut my heart anew
Empty nest as May is over
New farewells, and ever missing you.
Shadowed path by the garden gateway
Stream bed dry beside the lane
I wish dreams could drain my sadness
And a window let the sunlight in.
There’s a fine silk thread that joins us
Fastening me to you
It began when I first held you
And still reaches upward to the moon.
​
There’s a starlit thread that ties us
Stretching from me to you
Though each season now that passes
Seems another step away from you
In the maple, squirrels chatter
In the sky I look for peace
I will seek you in the drifting
of the white clouds sailing to the east
New fawns bed in weedy clearings
A tall pine holds the eagles’ nest
On my porch I welcome evening
Every creature finds its gentle rest
There’s a fine silk thread that joins us
Fastening me to you
It began when I first held you
And still reaches upward to the moon.
​
There’s a star-lit thread that ties us
Stretching from me to you
Though each season now that passes
Seems another step away from you.
​
Instrumental interlude
​
Final Chorus:
​
There’s a fine silk thread that joins us
fastening me to you
It began when I first held you
And still reaches upward to the moon.
​
There’s a star-lit thread that ties us
Stretching from me to you
And each season now that passes
Is another step away from you.
Yet each season now that passes
Is another step I take toward you.
Du Fu, Missing My Little Son
​
​
It’s spring, and still
you’re away, my Pony Boy,
as days grow warm
and birdsong swells to crescendo.
​
This change of season
cuts like a new farewell–
now who do I have
to share my bits of wisdom?
​
The stream runs free
alongside the empty path,
from village gate
down into distant shadow;
​
My torrent of sadness
will drain away in my dreams
while my back is warmed
by spring sun through my window.
​
Keith Holyoak, trans., Facing the Moon: Poems of Li Bai and Du Fu (Durham, N.H.: Oyster River, 2007) 63.
​
My song: The Chinese scholar/official endured frequent postings away from family. In the best of times, this separation brought tender longing and concern. In times of famine or civil war, it created deep worries about the health and safety of distant loved ones. Du Fu and his wife had two daughters and three sons, one of whom died in infancy. He strained to find homes for his family in places safe from flood, famine, and from the An Lushan rebellion.
Here Du Fu misses his young son (his second son, Zongwu), known as “Pony Boy.”
I, too, miss my young son. Daniel Cameron Merritt died in winter of 2018 after years of illness. I wrote my lyrics on June 18, 2018, my first Father’s Day without my son. During Daniel’s last years, we moved to a house in the woods where nature could provide emotional peace and spiritual comfort. The images in my lyrics draw from Du Fu’s poem, and from my own home.