Left on the beach
Full of water
A worn out boat
Reflects the white sky --
...
O my young brother, I cry for you
Don't you understand you must not die!
You who were born the last of all
Command a special store of parents' love
...
I can give myself to her
In her dreams
Whispering her own poems
...
Not speaking of the way,
Not thinking of what comes after,
Not questioning name or fame,
...
This autumn will end.
Nothing can last forever.
Fate controls our lives.
Fondle my breasts
...
Press my breasts,
Part the veil of mystery,
A flower blooms there,
Crimson and fragrant.
...
My lovely two-year-old Auguste,
I write this down for you:
Today, for the first time,
you struck your mother on the cheek.
...
Blach hair
Tangled in a thousand strands.
Tangled my hair and
Tangled my tangled memories
...
May is a fancy month, a flower month,
The month of buds, the month of scents, the month of colors,
The month of poplars, marrons, plantanes,
Azaleas, tree peonies, wisteria, redbud,
...
Akiko Yosano was the pen-name of a Japanese author, poet, pioneering feminist, pacifist, and social reformer, active in late Meiji period, Taisho period and early Showa period Japan. Her real name was Yosano Shiyo. She is one of the most famous, and most controversial, post-classical woman poets of Japan. Early life Yosano was born into a prosperous merchant family in Sakai, near Osaka. From the age of 11, she was the family member most responsible for running the family business, which produced and sold yokan, or bean candy. From early childhood, she was fond of reading literary works, and read widely in her father's extensive library. When she was a high school student, she began to subscribe to the poetry magazine Myojo (Bright Star), and she became one of its most important contributors. Myojo’s editor, Yosano Tekkan, taught her tanka poetry. They met when he came to Osaka and Sakai to deliver lectures and teach workshops. Although Tekkan had a common-law wife, Tekkan and Akiko fell in love. Tekkan eventually separated from his common-law wife, and the two poets started a new life together in the suburb of Tokyo. Tekkan and Akiko married in 1901. Literary Career In 1901, Yosano brought out her first volume of tanka, Midaregami (Tangled Hair), which contained 400 poems and was very well received by literary critics. Her first book, which overshadows everything else she wrote, brought a passionate individualism to traditional tanka poetry, unlike any other work of the late Meiji period. She followed this with twenty more waka anthologies over the course of her career, including Koigoromo (Robe of Love) and Maihime (Dancer). Her husband Tekkan was also a poet, but he soon realized that Yosano's abilities were far greater than his, and he decided to concentrate his energies on helping her. Yosano's poem Kimi Shinitamou koto nakare , addressed to her brother, was published in Myojo during the height of the Russo-Japanese War and was tremendously popular. Made into a song, it was used as a mild form of anti-war protest, as the number of Japanese casualties from the bloody Siege of Port Arthur became public. During the Taisho period, Yosano turned her attention to social commentary, with Hito obyobi Onna to shite (As a Human and as a Woman), Gekido no Naka o Iku? (Going through Turbulent Times) and her autobiography Akarumi e (To the Light). Her commentaries tended to criticize Japan's growing militarism, and also promoted her feminist viewpoints. Yosano founded a coeducational school, the Bunka Gakuin (Institute of Culture), together with Nishimura Isaku, Kawasaki Natsu and others, and became its first dean and chief lecturer. She helped many aspiring writers gain a foothold into the literary world. She was a strong advocate of women's education all of her life. She also translated the Japanese classics into the modern Japanese language, including the Shinyaku Genji Monogatari (Newly Translated Tale of Genji) and Shinyaku Eiga Monogatari (Newly Translated Tale of Flowering Fortunes). Her final work, Shin Man'yoshu (New Man'yoshu, 1937-1939) was a compilation of 26,783 poems by 6,675 contributors over a 60-year period. Yosano died of a stroke in 1942, at the age of 63. As her death occurred in the middle of the Pacific War, it went largely unnoticed in the press, and after the end of the war, her works were largely forgotten by critics and the general public. However, in recent years, her romantic, sensual style has come back into popularity and she has an ever increasing following. Her grave is at the Tama Reien in the outskirts of Tokyo. The Japanese politician Kaoru Yosano (Yosano Kaoru) is one of her grandsons.)
River Of Stars
Left on the beach
Full of water
A worn out boat
Reflects the white sky --
Of early autumn.
Swifter than hail
Lighter than a feather,
A vague sorrow
Crossed my mind.
Feeling you nearby,
how could I not come
to walk beneath
this evening moon rising
over flowering fields.
It was only
the thin thread of a cloud,
almost transparent,
leading me along the way
like an ancient sacred song.
I say his poem,
propped against this frozen wall,
in the late evening,
as bitter autumn rain
continues to fall.
What I count on
is a white birch
that stands
where no human language
is ever heard.
A bird comes
delicately as a little girl
to bathe
in the shade of my tree
in an autumn puddle.
Even at nineteen,
I had come to realize
that violets fade,
spring waters soon run dry,
this life too is transient
He stood by the door,
calling through the evening
the name of my
sister who died last year
and how I pitied him!
Translated by Sam Hamill & Keiko Matsui Gibson
Its everyday bro don't forgot to hit that subscribe button TEAM 10
The poems are truly lovely, but would prefer they be recited by a human being rather than a droid. For the love of god, where's the humanity in that?