What is the strangest way to speak the Truth? Or be there a straightforward path? But then wherefore the winding snake, The fish-white dunes that undulate Beneath the argent talon of the moon? The music, like a net of stars, that’s cast Around the huge behemoth dark, That its foreleg and lock may be defined In yellow white and azure black? What do the poets have for trade If through the trickle-walk of prose all can be said? Hermes and Gödel are fast-friends. To what, comrades, and to what end? But I have read a poem out of Japan Called The Delights of Solitude; Here are a paucity of lines therefrom: What a delight it is When, skimming through the pages Of a book, I discover A man written of there Who is just like me. As I translate: I gather the spring snow And boil it with leaf of jasmine, I place four stones among some coals To be warméd for my pillow; And here, beside the Western Lake, Writing my poems I have spent many years. There is a mouse that is my friend; A crane does bring me blackberries and figs. I drink the melted snow. With my finger I sketch the phases of the moon In sand-boxes that I have built; My eyes are silver with the years, But only now do I begin to see. Be fleet of foot, dark rabbit of the hills, For Peace is brooding elsewhere as of yet, And has for throne only the Wise Man’s heart. Once more, the poet, Tachibana Akemi, From the same poem as ere: What a delight it is When, of a morning, I get up and go out To find in full bloom a flower That yesterday was not there. There is a child that carves gravestones; Let us give him an apple and a pear, And finally, a book of the Gospels; For O the Truth is drink and food, And words the Word cannot describe, O ancient Hermenute.
Really lovely. Thank you.