Dabodi'
(To the Tune "Bodhisattva Stranger")
(Summer 1933)
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet,
Who is dancing in the void, twirling this colored sash?
After the rain, the sun slants back, 2
Passes and mountains are dotted with patches of azure.
That year a fierce banlc raged here,
Bullet holes have scored the village walls.
Thus adorned, these passes and mountains,
Today seem fairer still.
Our source for Ibis text is Shici duilian, pp. 44-45.
I. Dabodi is in Ruijin zitm, Jiansxi Province. (In his report of March 20, 1929, dcscribins the battle, translated in Volume Ill, Mao said it was in Ningdu; it is in fact on tbe
boundary of these two.xian.) 11 was there thai on February II, 1929, tbe Red Army troops
led by Mao and Zhu De achieved their first major victory against the Guominda!lg armies
after lcavinathe Jinggangshan. Mao wrote this poem wheo revisiting the place in 1933.
2. This line appem to be derived from one by Wen Tingyun (812-866), a poet of the
Tang dynasty.