Classic Poem

Ah
from the south, and from the southwest,
the breeze comes filling the valley,
dries my shirt soaked with sweat,
cools my hot forehead and eyelids.
Stirring the field of rice stalks that have risen,
shaking the dark raindrops from each blade,
the breeze comes filling the valley.
As a result of all kinds of hardship,
the July rice, bifurcating,
foretold a fruitful autumn,
but by mid-August
twelve red daybreaks
and six days of ninety percent humidity
made the stalks weak and long,
and though they put on ears and flowers
the fierce rain yesterday
felled them one after another.
Here, in the driving sheets of rain,
a fog, cold as if mourning,
covered the fallen rice.
Having suffered all of the bad conditions,
few of which we thought we'd have,
they showed the worst result we'd expected,
but then,
when we thought all the odds were against their rising,
because of the slight differences in seedling preparation
and in the use of superphosphate,
all the stalks are up today.
And I had expected this,
and to tell you of this recovery soon
I looked for you,
but you avoided me.
The rain grew harder
until it flooded this ground.
There was no sign of clearing.
Finally, like a crazy man
I ran out in the rain,
telephoned the weather bureau,
went from village to village, asking for you,
until, hoarse,
in the terrible lightning,
I went home late at night.
But in the end I did not sleep.
And, look,
this morning the east, the golden rose, opens,
the clouds, the beacons, rise one after another,
the high voltage wires roar,
the stagnant fog runs in the distance.
The rice stalks have risen at last.
They are living things,
precision machines.
All stand erect.
At their tips, which waited patiently in the rain,
tiny white flowers glisten
and above the quiet amber puddles reflecting the sun
red dragonflies glide.
Ah, we must dance like children,
dance we must, and that is not enough.
If they fall again,
they will rise again.
If, as they have,
they can stand humidity like this,
every village is certain to get
five bushels a quarter acre.
From the horizon buried beneath a forest,
from the row of dead volcanos shining blue,
the wind comes across the rice paddies,
makes the chestnut leaves glitter.
Now, the fresh evaporation,
the transparent movement of sap.
Ah, in the middle of this plain,
in the middle of these rice paddies rustling as powerfully as if they were reeds,
we must dance, clapping our hands, like the innocent gods of the past,
dance we must, and that is not enough.