My existence
facing chrysanthemums
becomes a silence.
translated by Edith Marcombe Shiffert & Yuki Sawa
20th Century Japanese poetry
2 haikus by Sanki Saitö
Without an ending,
the falling snow.
What will it bring?
A tumbled-down
scarecrow’s face
and over it the sky.
translated by Edith Marcombe Shiffert & Yuki Sawa
poem by Yasano Akiko
It is because you always hope, my heart,
that I always light a lamp
in the orange twilight.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth & Ikuko Atsumi
untitled poem by Yosano Akiko
Come at last to this point
I look back on my passion
And realize that I
Have been like a blind man
Who is unafraid of the dark.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
and again Yosano Akiko
My heart is like the sun,
drowned darkness,
soaked with rain,
beaten by the winds.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth & Ikuko Atsumi
one more untitled poem by Yosano Akiko
Sweet and sad
like love overwhelmed
with long sighs,
out of the depths of the willow
little by little
the moon appears.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth & Ikuko Atsumi
another untitled poem by Yosano Akiko
Purple butterflies
fly at night through my dreams.
Butterflies, tell me,
have you seen in my village
the falling flowers of the wisteria?
translated by Kenneth Rexroth & Ikuko Atsumi
untitled poem by Yosano Akiko
I have the delusion
that you are with me
as I walk through the fields
of flowers, under the moon.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth & Ikuko Atsumi
tanka 2 by Yosano Akiko
Spring is short:
Why ever should it
Be thought immortal?
I grope for
My full breasts with my hands.
translated by Geoffrey Bownas & Anthony Thwaite
tanka 1 by Yosano Akiko
No camellia
Not plum for me,
No flower that is white.
Peach blossom has a color
That does not ask my sins.
translated by Geoffrey Bownas & Anthony Thwaite
Leonard Durso 