Short Poems

Last night, at sunset,
The foxgloves were like tall altar candles.
Could I have lifted you to the roof of the greenhouse, my Dear,
I should have understood their burning.

When a hero fails of his purpose,
His acts are regarded as those of a villain and a robber.
Pursuing liberty, suddenly our plans are defeated.
In public we have been seized and pinioned and caged for many days.
How can we find exit from this place?
Weeping, we seem as fools; laughing, as rogues.
Alas! for us; we can only be silent.

Once, in the sultry heats of Midsummer,
An Emperor caused the miniature mountains in his garden
To be covered with white silk,
That so crowned
They might cool his eyes
With the sparkle of snow.

As if
to conceal
within the folds
of her robe
a dear wife's tears—
so in the mountain's bosom
descends

In numbers
unseen,
planting women
sing planting songs
with voices clear—
as the sunlight fades away
where they work
in seedling beds.

O thou whose name, being alone, aloud
I utter oft, and though thou art not there,
Toward thine imaged presence kiss the air.

That ship that came,
washed on the waves
of Matsuyama,
in no time vanished
into nothingness!

Though in mind
you may journey easily
into the depths of the mountains,
without living here
how can you know their loneliness?

Poor people of the hills,
a piece of the long slope
taken over for their shack,
and as though for a boundary,
that jewel of a young willow!

As banked clouds
are swept apart
by the wind at dawn,
the cry of the first wild geese
winging over the mountain