**
Unaccountably lonely in autumn.
***
I'd like to see God in my dreams.
***
On some days looking at the autumn sky I feel peace of mind.
***
If I don't kill myself it is because I believe in Christ.
A DOVE
A dove's voice at the window . . .
I hear it most joyfully when my temperature is low.
SOLILOQUY IN BED
***
They flow naturally.
What should I do with these tears?
***
I'd like to spread zealously the name of Jesus Christ
who was crucified to save us.
***
I'd like to recover soon
and spread the names of God and Jesus.
***
There are nights when I fall asleep
to the sound of the waves meshing with my thoughts.
There are times when I can't sleep at all.
***
Tomiko,
I don't mean that.
I mean that if I must die anyway
then please let me die with a beautiful heart.
***
Tomiko,
when we knew happiness together,
those times when I was to blame for things,
I can now see very clearly.
***
Seen through the window, the sky and flowing clouds—
I turn away from their excessive seriousness.
***
Tomiko,
I can't stand being in bed alone.
***
O Heavenly Father,
please save this feeble body and soul
and let me work on behalf of the light of God and Christ.
***
Oh,
what can I do?
***
Days of Purgatory.
Days of Purgatory.
***
Tomiko,
when not calling God's name
I'm calling yours.
***
Clouds float by in the sky
and
are looking at me abed.
***
I will be together with the heart of God.
***
Momoko and Yooji,
it's painful that I can't see you.
I'm happiest at having been your father
and not anyone else's.
***
Ah, how wonderful the sound of those waves.
I'd love to go to the beach.
***
Tomiko,
I am ill
and thinking of you as my mother.
...
In early winter,
I look down from a roof top garden.
The town of Kobe gives me
a look that is strangely off-putting
yet reminiscent of a streak of undeniable longing.
Only towards the mountain,
is it bright and clear as a fine autumn day.
Is it maybe because I'm looking down from a height?
What a pitiful sight it is with endless smoke rising gracelessly.
The town is evenly
coloured in dull steel blue
and appears disorderly.
I am pierced by an orderly streak of sorrow.
...
冬のはじめ
屋上庭園のうへからみる
神戸の街の
妙によそよそしい
そのくせ ひとすぢのたちがたいあくがれのにじむだ顔、
山のほうだけは
秋ばれのようにすみきってあかるい、
たかいところからみるゆえだらうか
まやまやとたちのぼるむすうのけむりのいたましさ、
いちように
くすんだはがねいろの街のいろどり、
ざつ然としたそのすがたは
整然としたひとすぢのかなしみとなってつんざいてくる
...
It's a bright sunny day.
Look out the window!
The gardener is working all day up in the trees.
It's a hot day.
Who is it in my heart,
though I haven't asked him,
pruning all day long?
...
want to love a jar.
Today—oh!
O jar, that arises in the calmness of my heart!
You have nothing in you.
Your emptiness!
O jar, my heart
strangely trembles
calling you, "My jar
...
O heart,
I'll see you later.
But
please come back again.
After all
You're better off here.
O heart,
I'll see you later.
...
Gazing at this stove
I'm moved to smash it to pieces.
This crackling stove!
How monstrous!
...
A day with clouds.
The clouds are sad.
A day without clouds.
The sky is sad.
...
The heart one day
became a mountain.
The heart one day
became the sky.
The heart one day
became me and was cold.
...
It was my fault.
It was entirely my fault.
Sitting on the grass like this, I see it
...
In the evening
when I open my eyes
I think of my mother in my hometown far away,
also opening her eyes and saying, "O my sweet child."
...
The wind whistles through corn.
It whistles, "Die!"
It whistles, "Die!"
I think I will die.
...
WRITTEN IN BED (NO TITLES)
**
Unaccountably lonely in autumn.
***
I'd like to see God in my dreams.
***
On some days looking at the autumn sky I feel peace of mind.
***
If I don't kill myself it is because I believe in Christ.
A DOVE
A dove's voice at the window . . .
I hear it most joyfully when my temperature is low.
SOLILOQUY IN BED
***
They flow naturally.
What should I do with these tears?
***
I'd like to spread zealously the name of Jesus Christ
who was crucified to save us.
***
I'd like to recover soon
and spread the names of God and Jesus.
***
There are nights when I fall asleep
to the sound of the waves meshing with my thoughts.
There are times when I can't sleep at all.
***
Tomiko,
I don't mean that.
I mean that if I must die anyway
then please let me die with a beautiful heart.
***
Tomiko,
when we knew happiness together,
those times when I was to blame for things,
I can now see very clearly.
***
Seen through the window, the sky and flowing clouds—
I turn away from their excessive seriousness.
***
Tomiko,
I can't stand being in bed alone.
***
O Heavenly Father,
please save this feeble body and soul
and let me work on behalf of the light of God and Christ.
***
Oh,
what can I do?
***
Days of Purgatory.
Days of Purgatory.
***
Tomiko,
when not calling God's name
I'm calling yours.
***
Clouds float by in the sky
and
are looking at me abed.
***
I will be together with the heart of God.
***
Momoko and Yooji,
it's painful that I can't see you.
I'm happiest at having been your father
and not anyone else's.
***
Ah, how wonderful the sound of those waves.
I'd love to go to the beach.
***
Tomiko,
I am ill
and thinking of you as my mother.
His wife, Tomiko, remarried Hideo Yoshino, a tanka poet (who was himself a tuberculosis patient and a widower) . Tomiko, with the help of Yoshino, drew up the complete inventory of all the unpublished manuscripts by her late husband and published 'The Complete Poems of Jūkichi Yagi' (1959) .
In 1928 Jūkichi's second book, 'Poor Believers', which comprised of poems he had selected before his death, was published.
In 1925 his first book, 'Autumn's Eye', was published. Jūkichi then joined a poetry group in Tokyo and started contributing his poems to several magazines. But it did last just one year: he developed tuberculosis in 1926 and became bed-ridden until his death in 1927, at the age of 29.
Born in 1898 in the outskirts of Tokyo, while in high school, Jūkichi started reading the Bible and soon became a devout Christian. At the age of 23, he was assigned to the Normal School in Hyogo Prefecture as an English teacher: there he started writing poetry prolifically – but only as the expression of his Christian belief.
Born in what is now part of the city of Machida near Tokyo, Jūkichi Yagi (1898–1927) was a Japanese poet active in the late Taishō period and for the first few years of the Shōwa period, who focused on modern religious themes.