Wilson, Graeme

English

University of Calgary Journal Hosting

Translations Jrom the Japanese of Hagiwara Sakutaro G R A E M E WILSON Face About the time when dozy buds Begin their travail on the cherry-trees, A vague white face floats up outside the window To peer in, blindly, at realities. Somewhere, somewhere I have seen that face. Behind the shadow of some ancient, bleak Remembrance I have met it. I have seen it Spawned in the harbour, Somewhere, A white leak Of worry ten feet down. It has the smell, That gloomy smell, of violets in decay. Look, from the glitter of the window-pane's Bright outer glass the white face fumes away To vanish in the distance like a rainbow That night's pure blacknesses may be pure black. Ah , as I drift through life's ill-lighted corner, I've learnt one grief that need not now come back. Chairs Persons sleeping under chairs, Are they not the sons and heirs Of men who built enormous houses, Mega-chairmen, millionaires ? G R A E M E W I L S O N Dinner at the Empty House Under the yellow lamp, we suppered: me And the family. No fish, no meat, no vegetables; just Rice dry as dust. The empty house was full, as sorrow is, Of absences. This happened on the evening of the day Of your going away. Quiet Night A photograph, blue platinum, Hangs in the window facing A street as strange as whist. Feet to that blueness pacing Outwalk the world of feet. Above the staring window A tower-top appears Like a thin glass wrist, A woman's wrist of platinum. And stars are shining; stars Hang shining in the street. The Ninth Small Poem How slightly The small fry in the shallows stir, How lightly Snow settles on the fir, How slight and light a flower The first frost is : As tenuous as our Consentiences. H A G I W A R A S A K Ü T A R O 9 1 Toad In the smithy of rain The bellows toad Swells that insane White dream of you Which in my dream Both grew and glowed And, glowing, grew. In the forge of the rain The soul sucks in, Again and again, This world and those That are other than this. And time wears thin As that growing grows. Seed in the Palm I pile upon my palm Earth, and I plant therein Seed ; and from a water-rose As white as porcelain I pour out water on that earth In one umbrella'd thin Down-blossoming of moisture, A domed delicious spray . . . And feel, as earth-cold penetrates My palm, that, far away, I'm pushing open windows That widen on to May. I stretch my hand towards a sun That hums like a spring hive, My skin grows warm with fragrance, The whole world seems to wive As, on my palm, that seed becomes Breath-takingly alive. 9- G R A E M E W I L S O N Toy Box: Morning The hunter dressed in blue Shoulders a rod-like gun: One, two, one, Two, one, two. At the heels of that braggart man, Completely shrivelled up, A wooden black-and-tan Twitches the biscuit tip Of its uncomplaining queue : One, two, one, Two, one, two. Near Mount F ut ago A l l feelings in me of remorse Had long gone sour. What reason then To chew this dandelion stalk, To suck its bitter milk, the coarse Bile of a natural bitterness ? Through country paths of loneliness I trudged like those demented men Who walk because they have to walk Ti l l sheer exhaustion saps the will. At last, exhausted and resigned, I slumped down on some meadow-hill, Some low green hump whose wands of hay, Wind-conjured, sank to raise a view More marvellous than Xanadu. Yet, blind with self-awareness, I Could find no trove in that trouvaille. Then, in the distance, suddenly, A train ran past. Its smoky-blue Knitting-needle purged my mind And knit the world. Because, to be The thing it was, it needed me. H A G I \V A R A S A K U T A R O Moonlit Night Flapping such large, such heavy wings, How weak their hearts must be . . . In this sadly gasoliered Clear night of moonlight, see That fume of creatures floating White-witheringly past. Look at their quiet direction, Look deep into the vast Sea-deepnesses of feeling Such feeble things contain. In the moonlit night, sand-bright As a gasolier, what pain, What pity eddies after That slow moth-hurricane. Mountain Top Movingly strange, In one wide swathe the view's Unfolding folds pale blues Over that wifely mountain-range Whose summit on my forehead shines. Ah , pampas-grass and ague-weed, Already whitened into seed, Wither away. My hand declines Under the weight of writing paper. And colours that the autumn thinned To pallid washes of blue-grey Now from the mountain peel away To leave, like some gigantic taper, Its whiteness shining in the wind. G R A E M E W I L S O N Scarecrow Over the flesh so sadly shrunken The whites and whitey-greens Of broken glass, sharp-shining, stretch A skin of smithereens. White eyes behind bare spectacles Watch how the faraway Sad, sad mountains bear themselves ; And whitely through the day With things like shells of shellfish My guts hang glittering. To me the hands are two. Two hands that hang like string Whose fray of finger-endings Rakes from the misted air Wee whitenesses of water On faintly shining hair. Hunched like an icicle, What none else bears, I bear. Until the eggs of the long-horned beetle Hatch, my nerves will glow White in this sad sunlight, Trembling to and fro, Pure white, Glass-shivered, Shining, Stark-naked in the snow. 

Translations from the Japanese of
Hagiwara Sakutaro

https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ariel/article/download/31686/25762

Translations from the Japanese of Hagiwara Sakutaro

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