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2.xi.26
Uji
such a green river
wild, tame, by turns
once I lived on a bicycle here
the river brings a breeze through the summer
some will lean on a rail to pine in a poem
here are steep banks the roots hold
the tributary moss, fast flowing fish
green, the river runs
green water in a tea town
Yamato!
here’s time past, passing
this is where the story began
here’s a ten yen temple
it’s thirty six years!
I have come back to the river
briefly, briefly
water bright through the trees
river as green as tea
Uji’s world matcha capital now
I rode here every day for a year
up to the dam wall, over the bridge
past where they fish
to stand in the tea roast smoke’s
why I’m back
dusk and the insects –
their season
washed up on the rocks to rust
carcass of an old washing machine
someone has thrown in
and vanity –
from some earlier era
a little red roadster speeds by
... and the poem I wrote here thirty six years ago --
宇治川の夕暮れ
UJIGAWA NO YUGURE
(Evenings on the
春の華Haru no hana Spring
Which birds are real and which electric,
the walk lights sing in every season.
Surviving frosty dwellings,
a schoolgirl and her lover
disarray the hair.
Ferocious as their attack
on futons, wives of washing
drag the bedding in.
The vague kingdom floats loosely
in its wrapping. Anger of centuries
unrequited. Dogs that only
bark at gaijin.
桜咲くSakura saku Cherry trees bloom
A forest tryst in any weather.
Which place then does the dusk
make secret first?
The bright grey curtain
hangs transparent.
One hundred million years,
a thousand years and this:
limping from their sexual excesses
carp make slow circles of the pond
桜散るSakura chiru Blossoms fall
A kingdom of threads
which none can loose
and none can see.
Cats play over the roof
ofthe teafield
scattering home
like memory.
Under a single star
and canopy of wire
The legion dead
in all their monument
let me salute
and darkening woods
which bear their way.
落花 Rakka Fallen petals
Great movement of the humours!
Fading from stone
or into air
or stone, how can one know,
the Buddha's likeness
no longer is discerned.
How will we name the moment
Of annihilation?
A lampless bicycle.
Comes around the riverbend then
– the rattling of tracks
across the
梅雨時 Tsuyudoki Rainy Season
In the dark month
before summer
on the oldest
bridge in
and under me
so swift
these fish swim
on our hooks
as soldiers might
upon their swords.
What if these lines
should fall into
the river then?
What sort of poem
would the cold
stones finish?
Cute lusts,
this clumsy dozing
and limp so well conceived.
On separate trains
and driving
between them,
sleeping on the straps
the wounded sway,
plucking eyebrows
from the living flesh.
Last whiff
of anonymous armpits.
Only for a moment
in the sky clear
then crowding home
to faded nestings.
Fistful of handlebars,
umbrella. This darkening
then -feast at which none
of the heavenly bodies show.
暑中見舞 いShochu mimai Summer greetings
Fill a bamboo cup
from the temple's
stone trough.
In the moon's pale wisp
which clouds reclaim
a sweltering dusk.
All these months
in the playpen
then the mischievous season.
From the million bedrooms
of empire, involuntary cooing
pure gender composes
as if to say
Today the cistern is dry.
Somewhere in a backroom
in the stinking heat
greatness chained
to the piano.
As drunks incline their lips
to ears lest spectacles collide.
Breaking the cicada hum,
thunder of the iron rail.
And are these thousand voices
all the same, these moveless lips?
Wasn't it the birds
taught us to sing?
Poor pictures we make
of their gifts to us.
台風一過 Taifu ikka After the typhoon
Bamboo leaves
carpet my way to work.
River hard at its banks,
birds scatter at the power lines
which run in all directions.
After the autumn equinox
and the rice lays
down its head.
Then hung for harvest
in the respite
between calamities
of heat and cold.
Thus many trains
sing on one line,
small voices carry
underneath.
冬 Fuyu Winter
The cold in every corner.
Waist-high in rubber
listening up against the tide.
And down at the bottom
still as stone
the secret paths offish.
Bright crevices between branches,
grey wind and the silent fall
of cloud's close secret.
Past hooks to the oilslick sea.
Along the river invisible green
sacred tracks through the forest
– the lampless way, the song unvoiced.
Forgotten thread.
Dusting leaves of bamboo,
unroofed teafields, bare heads
of houses, rice shoots -these
easiest blossoms drift
and fingers fall upon the keys,
white lines like dust
on the bitumen dark screen.
Steam from the gutter.
The cold in every corner.
