There’s no color
called love
in this world,
yet how thoroughly
it has dyed my heart

translated by Hiroaki Sato

Morning, six o’clock.
I opened the door of the day and stepped in–
a taste of young blue greeted me in the window,
the lines on my forehead remained in the mirror from yesterday,
and behind me a woman’s voice came softer than peach fuzz
and, on the radio, news from my country,
and now, my greed filling and overflowing,
I’ll run from tree to tree in the orchard of the hours,
and the sun will set, my love,
and I hope that beyond the night
the taste of a new blue will await me, I hope.

translated by Randy Blasing & Mutlu Konuk

What shall I do, Waves?
Waves, what shall I do?
Love is unmoved like the shore.
What shall I do, Waves?
What shall I do?

it is so simple
yet not as simple as all that
for love is forgetting
all that happened before
letting new flowers grow
in what’s left of a heart
worn and fearful
of the light of day
and expecting nothing
in return

“Being in a foreign country means walking a tightrope high above the ground without the net afforded a person by the country where he has his family, colleagues, and friends, and where he can easily say what he has to say in a language he has known since childhood.”

translated by Michael Henry Heim

In the end
that’s the road I’ll travel–
I’ve known it all along–
but I didn’t think I’d have to start
this very day

translated by Burton Watson

Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirtyfive years
I lived with my husband.
The plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turn away forgetting.
Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold