The deer on pine mountain,
Where there are no falling leaves,
Know the coming of autumn
Only by the sound of his own voice.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Japanese poetry
another anonymous Japanese poem
Did the cuckoo cry?
I open the door
And look out in the garden
There is only the moon
Alone in the night.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
untitled poem by anonymous poet from the Kokin Wakashu, 9th-10th Century, Japan
This world of ours,
Before we can know
Its fleeting sorrows,
We enter it through tears.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
a tanka by Ariwara No Narihira
Though winds blow,
coloring the
autumn bush clover,
my heart is no grass or leaf
that changes hue
a tanka by Ariwara No Narihara
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
a tanka in three lines by Ishikawa Takuboku
Sadness of the lifeless sand:
rustling,
it falls through my fingers as I clutch it
a tanka by Fujiwara No Teika
Because limits are set,
today I have taken off
my mourning robe,
but there’s no end
to my tears
a tanka by Lady Izumi
There’s no color
called love
in this world,
yet how thoroughly
it has dyed my heart
translated by Hiroaki Sato
a tanka by Fujiwara No Teika
Thinking of the past I wake, mind empty–
the moonlight gone, I do not know where
Untitled Tanka by Fujiwara No Shunzei
Very well–
but at least let me
hope for favor
in some life to come,
I who now suffer beyond enduring.
Leonard Durso 