Classic Poem

The Japanese house has a low roof,
the poorer the house, the lower the roof;

the lowness of the roof
weighs on my back.

What makes the weight of the roof?
I walk away ten steps to look:
what's on top of the house
is not the blue of the sky,
but the thickness of blood.

What holds me and blocks my way,
what confines my strength in the narrowness of one house
and consumes it

my sick father lives on the roof,
my stepmother lives on the roof,
my brothers live on the roof.

A wind blows
and the zinc roof twangs,
it can be easily blown away,
the four hundred square feet of it at the most —
look,
white radishes also lie on it,
rice lies on it,
and the warmth of the bed.

Bear it, they say;
under the weight of this roof
a woman, my spring darkens,
in the distance, the sun goes down.