Classic Poem

When she was alive, now a memory,
the two of us used to see, hand in hand,
the hundred-branch zelkova tree standing on the bank near us.
In as many ways as it sticks out its branches,
as luxuriantly as its leaves grow in spring,
I thought of my wife,
I depended upon her.
But because one cannot go against the way of the world,
in the wild field where heat haze flares
she hid herself with white-cloth scarves of heaven,
she rose and left with morning like a bird
and hid herself as the sun does, setting.
Each time the infant my lover left
as a keepsake for me cries, begging,
because I have nothing to give, nothing to leave with him,
though a man I lift him by his armpits.
In the bedroom with pillows
where my lover and I used to sleep,
I spend days, lonely, desolate till dark,
I spend nights, sighing till dawn.
I grieve but don't know what else to do,
I long for her but have no way of seeing her.
" Your wife you long for is seated
on Mount Wing of the great birds, "
someone says, so I come climbing over rocks
with difficulty. But there is nothing fortunate here,
with my wife who I thought was alive
lying in ashes.

ENVOYS

The autumn moon we saw last year crosses the sky, but my wife whom I saw it with has
grown apart one year

Leaving my wife on Mount Hikide of the sliding path, I think of the mountain path and no
longer feel alive

I come home and look at our room; facing away from me on our bed lies my wife's wooden
pillow