2017-03-07

On Feel of the Bird Watching and Relaxing at Trees

original poem〈賞鳥憩於樹有所感〉
english translation by Jeats  2017.03.10

On Feel of the Bird Watching and Relaxing at Trees


Fingertips pushed with soft touch
Away the door hooked just by shabby wires
Inside the yard was vivid greenness with bushes or trees
A couple of them standing or sitting closely
Talked
It was a maze with trees scattered around
Each time I took a different trail to pass through

To the deepest place, next to a 
Wood-built short wall
I from the square windows, high or low,
Visited your 
Charming fascination
So close that I could not ever 
Get to you closer than seasons did

I had deferred between you and the wall
Weeds were spiritless
Like something on mind having been smudged for long
Such sturdy and overweight 
Figs with branches
Sighed down from the top of the wall vertically

Cracks of leaves still leaked out the liquid of Time continuingly 
Profound light spots. Mild breeze warmed the heart
There was slight fragrance 
Steaming up with soft whisper
Far way the kitchen chimney smoke shouted and waved at returning fellows 
Mountain ridges crossed through
It seemed as a couple sitting on the ground
Back to back and affectionately 


It was always in the sunset
Decades of red turtle doves flew in 
Combing your hair as a brown chestnut tree
Or oriental turtle doves paced back and forth at your eyebrows
Showing off proudly to fiddle with and highlight dyed hair
After a while, in an unexpected 
Ghost-wash rain
Suddenly the makeup beauty had all fade away

For once at that moment
I thought of sitting down by your side 
Glazing at each other, and, doing nothing
We just watched stars roaming around at our craggy shoulders
Day by day, like secrets turning into
Baby birds in hesitation
Unstoppedly they hided themselves but soon stretched their heads out, awaiting you
To make my cheeks close to your hands and breasts
To feel, the texture of Universe
To witness how introverted plain-looking passions to fist to
Quarrel with the cold current

At last, I determinedly folded my off
Wings.  Burned off, then myself into peat
Then confessing 
I was not an Angel
But I have always been
A migratory bird, unadjusted to humid summer 

2017-03-02

The Borrowing Scene/ I Dreamed About/ Its Solitude/ The Night Curtain

original poem〈借景〉(龍安寺)
english translation by Jeats 


The Borrowing Scene


Led into the pond side group by group
Visitors either sat or stood
Gesticulating at those delicate crafts before their eyes
And calculating with many counts
Occasionally with bored and dull stare
Or held their hands back inclined, as if in contemplation

Stroking heads, vexed, hands on foreheads, meditating 
Finally they concentrated

Without a word

Tranquil 

Integrated *Karesansui. This turned into
The Borrowing Scene of Life


* Karesansui: a special Japanese form of garden design that is mainly composed of stones, sands and plants to express the simulated mountain and rivers.
(photo was taken at Ryoanji, Kyoto, Japan, in December 2007. )