Tatsuji Miyoshi Poems

Here is the place where your eyes rested
Upon the sparrows flitting through the pine boughs

Here is the place where your body rested
...

After we were defeated at war
ten million babies were born
...

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
...

he day is ending
out of a monastery gate
an alluring youth is coming home
...

you were here looking up
at the pine branches where pine sparrows flit about

you were here resting on the withered grass
the grass remains, still withered
...

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
...

an ant goes
dragging a butterfly wing
ah
like a yacht!
...

artless are the notes
your childlike fingers strum
the koto music of Japan soars to the sky
listening to you play a melody
...