A POEM BY JAPANESE POET SAGA NOBUYUKI

Hiroshima memorial

          THE MYTH OF HIROSHIMA


What are they looking for,

running to the summit of lost time?

Hundreds of people vaporized instantly

are walking in mid-air.


     "We don't die."

     "We skipped over death in a flash and became spirits."

     "Give us a real, human death."


One man's shadow among hundreds is branded on stone steps.


     "Why am I imprisoned in stone?"

     "Where did my flesh go, separated from its shadow?"

     "What must I wait for?"


The 20th century myth is stamped with fire.

Who will free this shadow from the stone?



                              ---- Saga Nobuyuki  (1902-?)
                                     tr by kijima hajime

Hiroshima memorial

 

 

 

*

A POEM BY JAPANESE POET YOSHIMOTO TAKAAKI

yoshimoto takaaki

 

 

 

                         POSSESSION

 

 

                     Our words are charming.

 

                    "Flesh," once said;

 

                    we immediately cling to the earth.

 

                    "Spirit," if spoken;

 

                    we are already flying.

 

 

                    Our souls belong

 

                    to gravity and buoyancy,

 

                    to suspicion and aspiration.

 

                   The world is made of coercion,

 

                   causes and mistakes,

 

                   but surely, a blue the same as the sky

 

                   hangs deep in our skulls.

 

 

                   Otherwise,

 

                   standing on fragile legs,

 

                   how could we ride the image of wings

 

                   to possess endlessly higher places.

 

 

 

                                 ---Yoshimoto Takaaki

                                                (1924-2012)

                                        tr Kijima Hajime

                                        and Nagatomo Shigenori



 

 

A POEM BY RYOKAN

              the air bellows outdoor museum of art

 

 

 

 

             DRINKING WINE WITH YOSHIYUKI

             AND BEING VERY HAPPY

 

 

 

             Older and younger brother meet---

 

             both with white eyebrows drooping down.

 

             And what delight in this time of peace,

 

             day after day getting drunk as fools!

 

 

 

 

                               ---RYOKAN  (1758-1831)

                                      tr by Burton Watson

 

 

 

 

 

ON THE GRASS by MIYOSHI TATSUJI

          robert ryman, untitled, 1959

ON THE GRASS

Goose running along the lane:

Shadow, too, running along the lane.  

Goose running over the lawn:

Shadow, too, running over the lawn.

White goose and her shadow,

Running...running...running.

And...into the water she goes!

*

---Miyoshi Tatsuji (1900-1964)