Closing line of
王维《
九月九日忆山东兄弟》(Wang Wei, On the 9th of the 9th Month, Remembering My Brothers East of the Mountains, written at 17 while studying in Chang'an):
独在异乡为异客，
每逢佳节倍思亲。
遥知兄弟登高处，
遍插茱萸少一人 (Alone in a strange land, a stranger's stranger; every festival redoubles my longing for kin. Far away I know — my brothers, climbing the heights, all wear cornel sprigs — but one fewer now).
茱萸 (Cornus officinalis) was worn on Chongyang (Double Ninth) Festival to ward off evil. The final image — imagining the scene from which you are absent — is one of the most piercing moments in Chinese poetry.
