A Longhouse Birdhouse

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Monday, September 25, 2023

IMAN MERSAL ~

A ruthless catalog of sorrows:

years in front of the screen, diplomas before jobs,

and languages —all the torture—now ranged under Languages.

Where are all the wasted days? And the nights

of walking with hands stretched out

and the visions that crept over the walls?

Where are the feelings of guilt

and the sudden sadness faced with a little hill of fruit

atop a handcart in some forgotten street?

Years with no mention of the empty hours or the funerals,

expunged of black depressions and nibbed nails,

the house keys forgotten inside the house.

There isn't a single open window

and no trace of the desire, deferred, to leap out.

A life overstuffed with accomplishments,

scrubbed free of dirt:

proof that the one who lived it

has cut all ties to the earth.

___________________

Iman Mersal

The Threshold

translated by Robyn Creswell

Farrar, 2022

Sunday, September 24, 2023

NEW BOOKS! ~

Steven Manuel, The Fire (New Books)

Tao Yuan-ming, Returning Home (White Pine)

Ronald Baatz, squeezing an orange on a snowy morning (Black Fig)

Dennis Maloney, Windows (White Pine)

Saturday, September 23, 2023

RONALD BAATZ ~

R O N A L D B A A T Z

Backroad Chalkie

Autumn 2023

Friday, September 22, 2023

Thursday, September 21, 2023

OLAV H. HAUGE ~

A BOAT BRINGS BOOKS AND MORE TO ISOLATED VILLAGES IN NORWAY

R E A D M E

90 YEARS AGO TODAY, THIS HOUR ~

Strong in the Rain

Strong in the rain

Strong in the wind

Strong against the summer heat and snow

He is healthy and robust

Free from desire

He never loses his temper

Nor the quiet smile on his lips

He eats four go of unpolished rice

Miso and a few vegetables a day

He does not consider himself

In whatever occurs. . .his understanding

Comes from observation and experience

And he never loses sight of things

He lives in a little thatched-roof hut

In a field in the shadows of a pine tree grove

If there is a sick child in the east

He goes there to nurse the child

If there's a tired mother in the west

He goes to her and carries her sheaves

If someone is near death in the south

He goes and says, 'Don't be afraid'

If there are strife and lawsuits in the north

He demands that the people put an end to their pettiness

He weeps at the time of drought

He plods about at a loss during the cold summer

Everyone calls him Blockhead

No one sings his praises

Or takes him to heart. . .

That is the kind of person

I want to be

_________________________

KENJI MIYAZAWA

Strong in the Rain

translated by Roger Pulvers

Bloodaxe Books, 2007

Kenji's best-known poem remained unpublished in his lifetime. It had been written in his little notebook with the title 'November 3' and discovered after his death. In this poem Kenji gives us a portrait of his ideal life. The 3 November is 1931, less than two years before he died. He wrote his will shortly before writing this poem. Perhaps he saw the poem as a kind of prayful wish for himself in his next life.

Kenji desperately desired to have a strong, robust and healthy body. Needless to say, this is a wish that is common to all people. But Kenji's desire for this contained a motivation that most of us would not claim for ourselves. Like the scorpion in Night on the Milky Way Train that burns its body to provide light and heat, Kenji wanted to use his body for the good of humanity. If you are sickly and weak, what sacrifices can you make for all of the humans who need you?

Kenji was utterly sincere in his wish to suppress and stifle his natural desires. These included natural physical drives such as those for food and sex, as well as material desires, such as those for wealth and comfort. Because of the asceticism inspired in him by his religion, Kenji denied himself these desires. To him, love meant only devotion and sacrifice. One's body must be robust, never sidetracked by worldly desires. The body, like the mind, must always be equal to the task of fulfilling its occupant's holy mission.

His last request to his father, on the morning of 21 September 1933— he died at 1:30 P.M. that same day — was to print up a thousand copies of the Lotus Sutra to distribute to his friends and acquaintances.

______________________

Thirteen years ago (I can't even fathom how time has sped) I posted this poem on the Birdhouse, another translation, in fact I have no idea who was the translator — the poem has been tacked up in my tool room now for almost half a century long, grimy and lasting. It could be Gary Snyder's since it was Snyder's tool & sheathed translations of Kenji Miyazawa I first read in 1969. This latest version of the same poem is translated by Roger Pulvers in Kenji's Bloodaxe publication Strong in the Rain. It's impossible not to share the commentary by Pulvers.

[ BA ]