for Sidney E. Johnson
''These days when
neither blossoms nor red leaves
remain on the trees,
stay awhile O snow
and adorn the pines!'
Dajo Tenno (ex-Emperor Go-Toba)
1.
A sea wind blows,
it's already cold, my Friend!
Taciturn gardens
are slowly dressing in crimson silk
and yellow brocade.
2.
Come, come to me, O my Friends,
distant travellers
on paths drenched with rain.
The gate to my house is open!
As I thought of you, I became drowsy
to the heartbeat of a gentle sadness.
3.
O, my friends, the hill folk say
that losing your soul isn't dying,
it's just pretending that you don't have one.
That's the way they talk on the high hillsides
when the moon brings the rains!
4.
How words
fill me with anguish,
how just and pure they seem,
how incantatory, how true!
5.
A sea wind blows
and my heart
dizzy and glutted with love
turns its gentle face
towards the face
of divine modesty.
6.
And my soul, in its headlong leap
towards what is pure,
immutable and immortal,
comes to resemble eternity!
translated from the French of Athanase Vantchev de Thracy by Norton Hodges
12.09.06.
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