The world is never
any more than just this—
I knew it all along,
but an aching heart
is still hard to bear.
translated by Ian Hideo Levy
Japanese poetry
Untitled Poem by Lady Akazome Emon
I should not have waited.
It would have been better
To have slept and dreamed,
Than to have watched night pass,
And this slow moon sink.
Untitled Poem by Yamabe No Akahito
I wish I were close
To you as the wet skirt of
A salt girl to her body.
I think of you always.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
untitled poem by the Japanese Emperor Yozei (reigned 877-884)
Falling from the ridge
Of high Tsukuba,
The Minano River
At last gathers itself,
Like my love, into
A deep, still pool.
Untitled Poem by Yamabe No Akahito
The mists rise over
The still pools at Asuka.
Memory does not
Pass away so easily.
Asuka gawa
Kawa yodo sarazu
Tatsu kiri no
Omoi sugu beki
Koi ni aranaku ni
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Leonard Durso 