After we were defeated at war
ten million babies were born
...
Here is the place where your eyes rested
Upon the sparrows flitting through the pine boughs
Here is the place where your body rested
...
But these feelings feel like spring
The old man mutters to himself
On a flagstone in a burned-out field
That is what one particular man and his fate muttered
...
The day has ended
The day has ended. Fill your
own sake-cup, the rest is all in vain
Sing to yourself your own verse
...
With evening
A beautiful adolescent returns home
Leaving the monastery gate
...
artless are the notes
your childlike fingers strum
the koto music of Japan soars to the sky
listening to you play a melody
...
in the middle of the night before a collection of my poetry comes out
solely due to my limited talent
may my verse
be an inception
...
Yet, a stirring in me seems like Spring,
mumbles an old man to himself
so mumbles fate as it embraces its own lonesome knees
on a flat stone in a burnt-over field
...