The road to Shuh is more difficult to climb than to climb the steep blue heaven.
I shrug my shoulders and heave a long sigh–gazing into the west.

translated by Shigeyoshi Obata

The sky spreads higher and more blue
every day I gaze on it,
the blue turning always
to a sigh.

translated by Jaihiun Kim & Ronald B. Hatch

is what you called me
blamed it on
all the trouble you caused
that I had to clean up
which of course
was considerable
I suppose it was love
though now
I’m not so sure
looking at this
from a decade or more
beyond
hindsight
and all the cliches
that conjures
I did think though
you were worth it
but how was I to know
you had so little faith
in yourself
and settled for
what I predicted
the path of least resistance
and so these emails
from across the world
of second
or even third
thoughts
are not unexpected
but also not welcomed
life goes on
and you and I both
went with it
in totally different directions
and now the sighs
though still there
are not the same
certainly not
more than resignation
of a new
old world
on replay
mixed with a bit
of contentment

They amputated
your thighs off my hips.
As far as I’m concerned
they are all surgeons. All of them.

They dismantled us
each from the other.
As far as I’m concerned
they are all engineers. All of them.

A pity. We were such a good
and loving invention.
An airplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.

We even flew a little.

On the wall of a house on which
bricks were painted I saw
visions of God.

A sleepless night which makes others’ heads ache
made flowers open up in my brain.

And he who was lost like a dog
will be found like a man and come back.

Love is not the last room:
There are others along
the long corridor that has no end.

Your hair dried last.
When we were already far from the sea,
when words and salt, which mixed on us,
separated from each other
with a sigh,
and your body no longer showed
signs of terrible antecedents.
In vain we forgot a few things on the beach,
as a pretext to return.
We did not return.

And these days I remember the days
on which your name was fixed like a name on a ship.
And how we saw, through two open doors,
a man thinking, and how we looked
at the clouds with the ancient look
we inherited from our fathers
waiting for rain,
and how at night, when the world had cooled,
your body held on to its heat a long time
like a sea.

When you smile
serious ideas suddenly get drowsy

all night the mountains keep silent at your side–
at morning, the sand goes out with you, to sea

when you do nice things to me
all heavy industry shuts down.

translated by David Rosenberg

Before my bed the light is so bright
it looks like a layer of frost
lifting my head I gaze at the moon
lying back down I think of home

translated by Red Pine

the future hangs over
everything I do
like a weight
an anvil, say
around my neck
or a cloud
a rain cloud
overhead
like some cartoon character
moving quickly forward
while a storm brews
the weight slowing my scurrying
toward shelter
though there is no shelter
apparent to me
on this, or any, horizon
oh well
what else to do
but stumble on
going forward
toward what can only be called
an uncertain future
the only place left
to go

When a friend starts on a journey of a thousand miles,
As he is about to leave, he delays again and again.
When men part, they feel they may never meet again.
When a year has gone, how will you ever find it again?
I wonder where it has gone, this year that is ended?
Certainly someplace far beyond the horizon.
It is gone like a river which flows to the East,
And empties into the sea without hope of return.
My neighbors on the left are heating wine.
On the right they are roasting a fat pig.
They will have one day of joy
As recompense for a whole year of trouble.
Will we leave so carelessly the years to come?
Everything passes, everything
Goes, and never looks back,
And we grow older and less strong.

translated by Kenneth Rexroth