Many of Du Fu's poems describe warfare, migration, hunger, hardship, and family experiences. His personal life is intertwined with changes in Tang society, leading later readers to call his work poetic history.
Poetry still involves selection and artistic expression and cannot replace all historical sources. Its details show greater value when compared with historical accounts.
War
A kingdom smashed, its hills and rivers still here, Spring in the city, plants and trees grow deep. Moved by the moment, flowers splash with tears, Alarmed at parting, birds startle the heart. War's beacon fires have gone on three months, Letters from home are worth thousands in gold. Fingers run through white hair until it thins, Cap-pins will almost no longer hold.
He escaped from Chang'an the following year, and was appointed Reminder when he rejoined the court in May 757. This post gave access to the emperor but was largely ceremonial. Du Fu's conscientiousness compelled him to try to make use of it: he caused trouble for himself by protesting the removal of his friend and patron Fang Guan on a petty charge. He was arrested but was pardoned in June. In September, Emperor Suzong granted Du Fu leave to visit his family, whom he had sent to a northern village for safety. Du Fu commemorated the reunion with a tripartite poem named "Jiang Village", after the village where they were staying.
From west of the towering ochre clouds The sun's rays descend to the plain. In the brushwood gate birds raise a racket: From a thousand miles the traveler comes home. Wife and children are amazed I survived, When surprise settles, they wipe away tears. I was swept along in the turmoil of the times, By chance I managed to get back alive. Our neighbors are filling the wall, Deeply moved, they're sobbing too. Toward night's end I take another candle, And face you, as if still in a dream.
I am about to scream madly in the office, Especially when they bring more papers to pile higher on my desk.
— from "Early Autumn, Miserable Heat, Papers Piling Up" (Zǎoqiū kǔrè duī'àn xiāngréng), translated by William Hung.
He moved on in the summer of 759; this has traditionally been ascribed to famine, but Hung believes that frustration is a more likely reason. He next spent around six weeks in Qinzhou (now Tianshui, Gansu province), where he wrote more than sixty poems.
Chengdu
In December 759, after a brief stay in Tonggu (modern Gansu), Du Fu journeyed southwest to Chengdu, where he was hosted by local Prefect and fellow poet Pei Di. Du subsequently based himself in Sichuan for most of the next five years. By the autumn of that year he was in financial trouble, and sent poems begging help to various acquaintances. He was relieved by Yan Wu, a friend and former colleague who was appointed governor general at Chengdu. Despite his financial problems, Du Fu's time in Chengdu, the "Brocade City", was one of the happiest and most peaceful periods of his life. Many of his poems from this period are peaceful depictions of life in his simple thatched cottage, a reconstruction of which is now a popular tourist attraction.
A good rain knows its season, It brings things to life right in spring. It enters the night, unseen with the breeze; It moistens things gently and without sound. Over paths through moors are clouds all black, A boat on the river, a single fire bright. At daybreak look where the red is soaked, The blossoms are heavy in Brocade City.
In 762, Du Fu left the city to escape a rebellion, but he returned in summer 764 when he was appointed an advisor to Yan, who was involved in campaigns against the Tibetan Empire.