Over North Mountain
dark clouds rise.
The stars go,
then the moon goes.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth & Ikuko Atsumi
7th Century Japanese poetry
poem by Empress Jitö
The stars pass.
The moon passes.
Blue clouds pass above the mountains to the north.
The years go by.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth & Ikuko Atsumi
Mother’s Song from the Manyoshu by an anonymous poet
If snow falls on the far field
where travelers
spend the night,
I ask you, cranes,
to warm my child in your wings.
translated by Willis Barnstone
poem by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Steeper and steeper.
I know she thinks of me, far off,
And wilts with longing, like summer grass.
Maybe if the mountains would bow down
I could see her again,
Standing in our doorway.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
poem by Prince Yuge from The Man’yoshü
Is it a bird
longing for the past
that soars crying
over the imperial well,
there by the evergreen?
translated by Ian Hideo Levy
a tanka by Kakinomoto Hitomaro from The Man’yoshu
The traveler sojourning
on the fields of Aki
stretches as in sleep,
yet he cannot sleep,
thinking of the past.
translated by Ian Hideo Levy
from the Man’yoshu: a poem by Takechi Kurohito
Where does it go for harbor
the tiny boat
with no gunwales,
that they rowed around Cape Are?
Leonard Durso 