Yesterday, crows cawed around the courtyard trees,
Travelers on the road wore faces pale with fear.
I called a passerby to ask what this might be,
He said, as village head, he chased the tax arrears.
Tax arrears have always been a tangled mess,
Three years' debt is worse than four, I must confess.
Add households fleeing from each ward's control,
Each time he reports, officials scorn his role.
People flee, it's true, but fields do not take flight,
Yet where those fleeing fields have gone is out of sight.
From the start, land bounds were drawn without due care,
Rents set by neighbors varied, grossly unfair.
The rich bought land to make their tax burdens light,
The poor sold theirs, yet saw the prices spike.
Good fields bore the tax meant for the poor, worn soil,
Tax remained though fields were lost through flight and toil.
Some fled because the land was barren, bleak,
Years passed, fields encroached, with none the truth to speak.
And clerks pressed hard, imposing levies cruel,
More pushed, less cut, following their own vile rule.
The people, simple yet divine, can't all be cheated,
Often into fleeing households' rolls they're seated.
Thus fleeing households daily multiply,
The village head, bewildered, can but sigh.
In former times, corvée had light and heavy shares,
Among the heads, the middling class bore cares.
Lately, village chiefs took up righteous duty,
Each striving to supply with full capacity.
They scoured the middling class, not one left free,
Each head's home stripped bare, walls all you see.
The court prayed for rain to every god on high,
Decreed lenient policies, waived housing fee.
Housing fee waived might ease the idle hand,
But how can real relief the farmers land?
A thousand coins paid in proxy still might do,
Today's levy paid, tomorrow brings a new.
Father, mother, cries unheard, in vain,
Their bodies whipped like wood, enduring pain.
Each day the crows caw, meetings draw near,
Blood stains the court, too deep to disappear.
Thus everywhere they hear the crow's bleak sound,
Souls scattered, hearts like pounding, profound.
Harmony brings luck, discord breeds strange fate,
I'd resigned to drought-demon's cruel hate.
Suddenly, crows disperse, magpies cross in flight,
High branch brings joy, low branch shares the light.
Ten thousand voices cheer, the earth does shake,
The prefecture now cancels three years' tax take.
Bell-dragging runners come as from the sky,
Posting large notices where streets run by.
Crafty clerks stand stunned, their feet rooted fast,
Heads raise to heaven, ten fingers amassed.
Wounds not yet healed lose their groans of pain,
Gratitude too deep brings tears like rain.
They say new rents too will have grace days long,
Four years' old arrears—won't they belong?
They know tax duties can't be shirked outright,
A little ease may let them bear the blight.
The governor follows good like flowing stream,
A humane man's words show thoughtful scheme.
Approving in a moment seems so light,
How many bow, reborn, in grateful sight?
Human will aligns with heaven's sense,
Before swift feet return, rain falls intense.
Now we know this method beats prayer's art,
Yin and yang shift in moments, quick to start.
What if sweet rain still lags, delayed its fall?
I write this poem, praying, giving all.
Painted dragons may fall, lizards run free,
But real dragons rise with thunder's decree.
If you doubt my words, no force can make you see,
Witness our land's rain today, and agree.
The poem done, thanks given, more prayers rise,
Now is the time new rents to realize.
Assign taxes in kind to the upper tier,
Let common folk not suffer, slow or dear.
Four years' fleeing households still fill the count,
Deep-rooted ills can't vanish in amount.
First, exemptions should show the truthful case,
Who dares rely on strength to evade disgrace?
If thus the people's ills are eight- or nine-parts cured,
Leisure then allows the registers secured.
With proper checks, abuses come to light,
Half the fleeing tax can be reclaimed right.
Further, expand the righteous service plan,
Heads and clerks united, as one clan.
Then both duties may find balance fair,
No longer will the poor alone despair.
Not just a downpour brings a single day's delight,
Even in famine years, all would live aright.
Joy's report not just from magpie's cry,
The elder's roof, the crow too sings on high.