#2496 -- Uji

 

2496

7.304

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 Uji River)

 

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 Uji River.

 

梅雨時            Tsuyudoki       Rainy Season

 

In the dark month

before summer

on the oldest

bridge in Japan

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 Japan.

 

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.