Short Poems

Once upon a log, a human face was carved. All the more striking as it was carved by a chimp. He'd meant to carve his own face, but his use of tools was limited. Plus, accidents will happen, most always leading to things breaking. That was the chimp's experience, anyway. Just look at how the protruding snout broke off here. And the prominent brow ridge, which was still in his hand.
The chimpanzee buried the brow ridge inside a termite mound where he had gone to look for food, but what interests us now is the log, which was not pleased.

My nickname for my period is Karl Marx. I think it demands that my femininity be taken seriously, especially in political circles.
One thing I never understood, when I was in grade school, was why we hated the communists. Reagan was president then; we were learning history. So much was dependent on the evils of communism, but nobody could explain it specifically. In Catholic school, explanations were frowned upon.

Nahtegel, sing einen don mit sinne
miner hohgemüten chuniginne!
chun d e ir, daz min steter müt vnd min her├ºe brinne
nah irm süze n l i be vnd nah ir minne!

In the western district, north of the road, only the voices of merchants.
No willows, no blossoms, no cry of the warbler.
Since the coming of spring, fifty days have passed,
yet I find not one thing that stirs the feeling of spring.

Last year on this night, attending at Seiryo,
(The name of the imperial residence)
my poem " Autumn Thoughts " expressed my lonely grief.
(By imperial command, we composed poems on " autumn thoughts. " Mine expressed much frustration.)
Generously bestowed, that imperial robe is now beside me here.
I lift it everyday to revere its lingering scent.
(I write this because after the banquet ended that night, the emperor gave me a robe that I keep with me in a box.)

Your minister, through the years, has had his cheerful thoughts,
but this night, everything arouses only sadness:
the voice of the cold cricket in the blowing wind,
leaves falling from the paulownia tree, struck by the rain.
You, my lord, are at your peak, while gradually I grow old.
Your generosity has been boundless, my repayment always slow.
Not knowing how to assuage this feeling,
I drink wine, listen to the koto , and recite poems.

In this room, neither children nor wife, but a monk, his head covered,
one hand in a mudra , incense burning before a single lamp.
From memory reciting three or four meditation sutras,
I thus observe monastic abstinence, more pure than ice.

Written in 889, while Michizane was still in Sanuki, this poem is the first in a series of nine quatrains that Michizane tells us he wrote on a sleepless winter night. Two on Buddhist themes are translated later. In others, he recites poetry, hears the wind in an old pine, and so forth. Whereas some of Michizane's poetry is highly allusive and displays learned techniques, these and other more personal poems usually are in a more easily accessible style requiring fewer footnotes.
Unable to sleep, I fitfully spend the night

A poem composed at a banquet for the provincial and district officials held at the government office of Inaba Province on the first day of the First Month of the third year [of Tenpyo-Hoji, 759].
Like the snow that first falls
on this first day of the year
in early spring,
from today may our blessings
accumulate evermore!

And now Okura
really must be departing.
My children must be
crying, and their mother too
must await my return.