Pathway to Japanese Literature

The First Smile and the First Hand

Whether you knew it or not,

Your first smile

How that first smile struck my heart,

The day we first met,

That momentary smile you gave,

Bestowed with bright eyes,

However meaningless it may have been to you,

To me, it was a shock,

I who from a thousand years past

Had seemingly known you

Found my heart growing intimate,

Always toward your heart and body

the ease of contact

I unilaterally decided,

Was this my arbitrary decision?

That didn't matter. Now, writing poetry for you in this way—this momentary time remained inviolable by anything for me. A time of happiness. That you pressed down the wings of my fate contained no error. Like insects fluttering across earth veiled in poverty, unable to take flight. If you pressed down on my wings not with suffering but with love—opened them with love and responded with love—

If you had made me something that could soar lightly,
How happy I would have been,
How much courage would have surged through me,
For struggle into the vast sky

You and I both lined up to take flight,
Yearning for the wild eagle's love.
Without any resistance,
Your hand that you openly gave me—
That hand, rather than being rejected,
How fiercely it would have imposed restraint upon me!
As if that first smile were eternal,
What you first gave me—
Your hand moved me once more,
Made me grateful.

That warmth will never leave my memory.

Above the valley

The two walked aimlessly.

The bustle of the city.
They instinctively avoided it.
The two emerged above THE valley,

And then they drew close and sat.

They looked down into the valley,
The trees overlapped.
The valley was dark and unseen,
Vast, bright, infinite—

Only the sky spread out even behind the two of them,

O Nature,

You, O Nature, watch intently as we two—
whether to make love anew,
or let it fester—

O Nature, you watch intently as we now stake our claim—
Above the valley where only the two remained,

And then the person of strong will crumbled.
I, like a spring,
restrained that person.

In extreme calmness,

The woman, her lips voracious for love,
pounded against mountain ranges,
receding into the distance.
Like dense clouds,
a subtle quivering
bestowed upon my lips.
At that moment—then the two of them
held a perfect secret—
The new enterprise of love began.
Cicadas shrilled
like scorching rain pelting down,
trilling from the tree at their feet.
Where should I spill this beautiful blood?
I—compared to horses and swine—
possess purer blood.
Where would make a fitting place to die?
Blood—where shall I choose to shed it?

Where would be considered a sacred place?

Surveying the surroundings,

I tried to discover,

A plaza paved with silver pebbles—or something like that—

It was the most suitable place,

A detached heart and body,

Lying down.

A golden horsefly came flying.
It landed on the tip of my nose.
I shall never rise up,
My people's corpses

They shall be scattered by countless horsefly legs.

Everyone must confront this truth - that all must die once.

Have you ever considered—

I too thought of that -
This matter of living versus dying -
For me who didn't know either -
Kept muttering "Die, die"
Yet if one were to fulfill their natural span auspiciously
How absurd -
Funeral carriages stood waiting in rows
I had to answer their expectations
Must they cling to rotting ideologies forever?
Young people grew pointlessly melancholic
Aged ideologies had become dams
Blocking young thought's current
Old ideologies - perish quickly now

I drink water shamelessly and gulp down meals,
I gaze at pansy flowers,
Not even fit to be an apple bag,
I write rough poems on rough paper.

To live on shamelessly brings nothing but pain,
But friend, do not worry,

Woman, lover,
Be at ease,

I, together with ideology,

Because I must keep my body alive,

I keep repeating "Die, die"

Finding dark pleasure in the chant.

I write this poem

Even should I hang from tomorrow's ceiling—

To make it appear natural,

I've kept vigilant in daily preparation.

In fact, my freedom to die—
Who could possess the power to halt it?
Not friends—not even beloved women—

Stopping it remains impossible,

Yet somewhere persists this urging—'Do not die'—

Within my heart beats Class Mother,

Who whispers revolution's lullaby to her eternal child.

Love and Idleness

Even as my heart suffers

Even as it pounds

Leave it to me.

I plot love and struggle together,

My stubbornness

"You there, I pray you laugh,"
"Spread your gossip too, I pray you,"
"Someday the generator of love will silence the world's gossip—"
"The generator of love—"

The generator of love would silence them.
I am my beloved’s.
Intoxicated by happiness under their protection.

From under shelter—
I set out to struggle,

How much courage would I muster,

To think love requires leisure and time—

That you scorn the proletariat's love—this too is a reason,

Your frugality even in moments spent loving women—

Though your zeal for class struggle commands respect,

What if you ceased taking meals altogether?

Class, father, mother—

Siblings, wife and children, comrades—

All becomes struggle for love and truth.

Affirm kinship bonds fiercely, I pray you—

Then climb one step higher from the hundred-foot pole’s peak—

At times practice loving perfect strangers too, I entreat—

Your heart touches the hearts of beautiful things.

Love's Decisive Severance

Proletarian love—

I wondered—in what form should it be conducted,

bourgeois love and—

how vastly different their forms must be.

The proletariat's young comrades—

they burned to know this—

I thought,

Like butterflies sipping marigold nectar,

ultimately intoxicated amidst blossoms.

Friend, your peculiar way of loving—

I found it comical—this timidity and excessive reserve,

I think—
Class passion must burn with singular intensity,
Love isn't a balance beam after all—
If one side ascends, it doesn't mean the other must descend—
I don't believe fighting spirit leaps up through a woman's gravity—
I'll clasp both love and struggle and gallop horseback—
Face enemies like King Kong,
Against nationalists—
We communists stay sharp-edged—
Must remain modern and scientific yet—
While love soars far beyond them—
Though it ought to pulse with modernity's rhythm—

Why are there so many uncouth people?

I want to fall in love with all women in the world,

I won't refuse any proposal,

To fight and love—isn't it magnificent?

Love or duty—

Comrades must have agonized over that.

When pressed to decide, love's dilemma—

With the loach-seller's resolve gutting his catch,

Demands decisive severance,

Like Stenka Razin,
I offer a woman to the dragon god and fight onward.

“Friend, rest assured.

Even having one or two love affairs—

The ideology we’re born with doesn’t rot,

I love women’s strength.

That woman who fought fiercely—

I wonder how she fares now.

Hating, loving, each other’s life chaos—

while trying to escape,

we pressed burning brands to each other’s hearts.

You were strong like a man,

I was gentle like a woman.

We warred over love,

and at passion’s high crossroads—

we two parted.”

I was wounded,
You were wounded,
What the two knew was
truth—how
violent it could be.

The struggle carved sad, joyful, never-fading characters into my heart.
Ah, that moment's time flowed away,
Everything became recollection,

Yet memories of love grow daily,

Thickly, sweetly, passionately, within the heart.

Being actualized was painful,

It was no transient love in bed,

The woman of the past that was you,

The long sash I had dragged along
With new legs
I stepped， missed my footing， and fell，
Woman， your love runs deep．

"My passion plumbed the depths of that,
Your love was darkly anachronistic."

You ravaged my face mercilessly
with your claws of nails.
I became drenched in blood—

yet feel no hatred,
loving instead that strength
with which you departed.

Love persists submarine-like
through dove-eyed innocence.

Who had given the injection, I wondered,
your eyes bloodshot,
face contorted in anguish,

“You stared at me,”

I too am like a swamp,

Eyes tend to be blue and sunken,

Irritated people’s

The bustling city

There, your and my

Such two kinds of
eyes—people bearing them walked.

They were special eyes.
People called us happy ones,
In suffering and intoxication,
With eyes of uncanny murkiness,

The two traversed through the midst of people's lives,

They calmly traverse,

Eyes of love,

What are you looking at,

But the two eyes

They answered nothing—
People’s scorn and criticism,
Insults and envy—
Soon these eyes,
calmly and steadily looking down,
would calm them all.
Soon, the eyes of these two
—it was the sun that had been reflecting on the lake—
as if brightening all at once—
clarified with terrifying speed,

Four eyes
The four eyes glittered amidst people’s lives,
Like a periscope on the sea
Surveying people’s lives from above the waves,
They began to perceive,
Love was like a submarine enduring water pressure.

Love endured all suffering’s
Weight of pressure.
Our love became like a submarine
Enduring anguish
Its breath drawn long

Autumn Poem

Know not autumn's sorrow

Your blissful day,

And in your manner of speech—

“Because I am not a poet,”

And may you—autumn’s sorrow—

remain forever unknowing,

I choose to hope.

Truly this must be extraordinary—

While all people declare autumn mournful,

that you proclaim it joyous,

yet this rings true,

For what falls are but leaves,

never having taken root in your heart or mine.

Take courage.

You, during this joyful autumn,
“Undertake ‘The Reform of Household Chores.’”
Autumn leaves fell.
When I suddenly fixed my eyes on a tree trunk,
How bravely the tree had armed itself against winter’s assault,
How bravely it armed itself,
Please—you in my stead—
Kiss the tree trunk fiercely,
Natural trees and the sweetness of human life—realize
How remarkably similar they are,
Be astonished,
For all people too—sorrow from autumn
Must be wiped away.

For you who first did this,

Whether in love or in labor,

the embrace of autumn and happiness

To you who first did this,

I dedicate this poem,

Love Within Labor

In the countryside,

Songs of life and in the countryside,

Amidst the busy throwing of wheat bundles

Beautiful, healthy people laugh,

In the city,
the factory's clamor
became intertwined,
and within that orderly din,
those beautiful, healthy people laughed,

"Now, young people,"

For a little while,

Please wait,

All life’s inconveniences will be eliminated,

the time to love one another

Within eight-hour working hours,

The day will come when we work and love within eight-hour shifts,

The two people’s lives’

At the convergence of sufferings,

How at the collision of two people’s four eyes,

Where their gazes clashed,

A single beautiful moon,

Like emeralds and rubies,

The stars must be sparkling,

The two people’s lives,

Toward those who threaten
At the point where their shield-raising methods align
What flowers and walking paths and
The mountains must be opened up,

Young people,

your lives'

From the convergence of sufferings

the cooperative [driving out] of those sufferings

For expulsion

From the moment they began the work of struggle,

the right to almost harmoniously love each other

You should assert it openly,

And to the trees and moon and stars and flowers and mountains

To touch nature

You should go together,

O Youth of Time,

It is something that flees away, but,

You must not chase frantically after it,

Natural struggle
To you forever
Grants power to love each other
Won't we keep youth from being lost?
Love's Migrant Laborer

We, Love’s Migrant Laborers,

Wearing straw sandals

Shall we go to the rice fields,
Wearing shoes,
Shall we go to the company,
Shall we go to school carrying textbooks,
Or perhaps boarding an airplane,
Shall we go to attack the enemy,

O Humanity's Love,

O Grasshopper,

You chirp faintly between stone and stone,

Breath on the verge of ceasing,

Ceaselessly,

Ah, ah—what a pathetic tale—

Valiantly we,

Setting out as Love's Migrant Laborers,

With large sickles in hand

Reaped injustice,

Tried bundling justice,

But sowers were few,

While reapers stood many,

The work soon ended,

Compared to departure's valor,

We slumped listless,

Withdraw,

And love becomes like a grasshopper,

Chirping between stone and stone,

Breath verging on cessation,

Unceasing,

Ah ah, what a wretched tale,

Answering your loneliness,
You tried to voice that solitude to me.
O your eyes that seemed anguished,
You who grasped at loneliness' essence,
Yet found no words that could contain it,

I know everything—
Why you suffer,
How you tried to grasp me
With absolute love
Yet found it utterly impossible.
Consider this alone:

I am no bourgeois romanticist,
No love idealist in daily affairs—
Merely a creature of routine,
Society's child.

Liberated yet constrained,
I smash through all that binds me—
This searing force within—
To forge freedom's path.

I break through and advance,

From personal love expanded further,
To societal love,
The strength and thickness of their bond,
While knowing their closeness,

From one lover
I will create a million lovers.

My love does not belong to your individual love's possession.
You must find loneliness there.

Trust in men becomes anxiety.

This anxiety will assail you relentlessly and seize you.

O woman, O pure-hearted one,

The essence of love and its methods
that shift with the changing eras—
For you who cannot conceive this truth—
For now I

He must be a man engrossed in work yet discontented,

O your eyes that appear anguished,

Eyes quiver with love and cloud over,

When your eyes understood love's social nature

How radiantly they would gleam.

I wait steadfastly for that day,

In the woods,

From your expression I
perceive the new epochal character.

When looking upward you seemed happy,
When looking downward you seemed sad,

However, your expression was hard,

I had manifested upon your skin.

I refused to acknowledge that hardened expression,

Though your eyes brimmed with moisture,

For I knew their luminous dampness shone,

In your eyes dwells an intense love for humanity,
Like wind sweeping across marshes
Forever churning the water's surface—
The marsh remains undead,

Living, moving,

The eyes inform me,

O your eyes,

O burning orb of love,

The skin of the face is timid,

But the eyes are always like a deep marsh or lake,
They are shining contemplatively,

The beauty of a woman tempered through struggle—
Unknowingly you've come to embody it—
I too move within your orbit—
Count me among that motley crowd of foolish men—
This era teems with time for loving women—
As one who needs no hours beyond such devotion—
Include me too—this impatient busy man—
Here I stand at trial's blazing core—
That love and struggle might coexist—
This I believe without doubt—

You seem to harbor some doubt about that,

Heine also struggled with that,

"In the great wars of the era,
when others must fight,"

After making a preface,

I timidly began to sing a love song,
and then gradually became engrossed in singing.

Surrounded by love's gentle chains

I'm in danger of losing my fighting spirit.

The intoxication of love’s happiness

Trying to avoid it, yet it is something unavoidable,

I too, like the poet Heine, have a conscience,
But I’m not so composed as to write a preface,
The eye of the lake shines with moisture,

O gloomy and sorrowful visage of our times,
Your beautiful eyes
Had been captured until just recently.
Within the heavy, painful recurrence of time,
The eyes were fixed in monotonous thought.
No matter how strongly I love you,
Within this unapproachable prison,

Your eyes remained fixed on a single window,
you spent your days gazing,

A cute little sparrow

On the tree branch within your sight,
always on the same tree branch,
it perched and sang,
fluttering its wings into various poses,
entertaining the bored captive heart.

I am like that sparrow,

I lack the strength to soften your heavy eyes,

My gloomy

Eyes of suffering that cannot be told to others

Being held in your broad, sturdy chest—
you with a softness like sparrow down trembling in wind—
even when you hurl battle-weariness at me,
I still sense this solace rising through it all:

This desperate love of mine—
sudden to you, careless in its urgency—
this clumsy confession of devotion—
go on then, despise me thoroughly—

The forest was quiet,

You and I lined up,
we leaned against a large tree trunk and stretched out legs,
for the first time since I was born,
the drowsiness of such quiet rest
I had never experienced.
I prefer love that is supremely tumultuous,
here there was an extreme quietude,
I felt a blissful time,
my drowsy sleep
was completely pure,
that there is wonderful tranquility within struggle
knowing this, I could only be astonished,

Tranquility should be cherished—
while I fight against death’s futility,

the resentment of living on

In the midst of life's turbulence,

In what form should I express it?

We know it,

And for that work,

There was no rest,
startled by butterflies in flight,
amidst falling small tree fruits

loving each other

I had completely forgotten—
How acutely sensitive love proves!
Recalling all I'd neglected and let slip—
Love testifies it becomes respite for the spirit,

Tomorrow I shall arm myself with courage
and a fierce impulse
to vow that I shall battle what must be battled.

Song of the Evening Star

The night sky was a navy verging on black.

The thicket on the ground was dark,

Under the sky we stood

And then embraced without hesitation toward anyone.

Even within a moment's intoxication,

There must be complete happiness,

Struggle—to put it differently,

Struggle—this is the synonym for happiness.

The stars' twinkle is sweet,
That light possesses a beauty gruesome in its intensity,
At what do we gaze beneath the evening star,
Where do we stand,

“Woman, please quietly separate from my body,”

“Approach again and embrace me as well,”

“The sweetness of a kiss.”

Forever we do not forget,

so as not to forget pain, regret and anger,

Let us swiftly discern the root of happiness,

The fatigue of life

A body tormented by life

Let us discern where lies the enemy of the buffeted spirit,

Blush,

Gentle evening star,

All upon the mountains,

Faint and unbearably fine

Delicate light was falling like rain.

We were amidst our embrace

how strongly and fiercely

We must have come to know the essential might of that light,

For the luminous beings of the sky

The young people who were all the luminous beings of the earth,

“Become strong enough to speak of love with a weapon in one hand,”

Young Japanese Cossack soldiers,

Under the evening star of all freedom, let us speak of love.

A ravenous being in matters of both sexes

My pride as a man is
the delicacy of a woman's emotions—
a force that pursues and seeks to every farthest horizon
heading far out to sea
like a seabird
being able to respond to a woman's delicacy
I am the possessor of emotions
like all men toward women
Kokeodokashi's
hating the rounding-off attitude—
the woman's truth

The joy of discovery

That joy surpasses all,

I am a worshipper of women.

The act of seeking a woman's truth

Fatigue and suffering were immense,

The visitor—
To be wounded,
To fall,
To know despair—
Avoiding fellow men's harsh struggles
And love's battle with women—
This was never my path:
Contending over love with women

Furthermore I am enlisted in the struggle among fellow men
As for love I am voracious across both sexes

In the world that seeks truth
A strong chest sings
To what confronts

I do not sing songs of defeat without a fight,

I do not sing,
Does love have respite?

——To a Certain Woman——

While seeking rest and peace,

On one hand we fiercely strive to love each other.
Love is not the rest you imagine.
Love is inherently fierce,

“Well, you must be tired.”
“If you were to collapse, it would be for the best,”
“You reject embraces and kisses,”
“In that case, your fatigue will never find rest,”
“Your dishonesty,”

How much would it make even the blazing sun appear dark to me,

With things that shine righteously

under those that cast rightful shadows—

Love must be perfectly righteous.

May it manifest beneath sunlight's gaze,

Contorting body and soul while—

We endlessly strain to love without touching or parting.

I cannot comprehend your heart,

I shall take my leave.

This burden remains your keepsake—

Clutching mental turmoil—

From the cavern of love's antiquated morals

You do not emerge.
How you make me ache,
this partner in pyromancy,
this burning me alive—

I must appear too pitiful,
Else like time that knows no respite,
In our love too there is no rest.
What must be staked shall be staked.

Concerning Gossip

My every move and gesture had been laid bare.

To affect composure now...

Table speeches were another torment.

You whom I love—let us brandish our affection,

I do not fear walks with you.
You seem slightly afraid.

As for gossip's chaotic flight,

I was amidst Hokkaido's raging blizzard,
Once I lay buried beneath snow,
When extracting wood for fuel—

Neither nature nor people loved me,
I was an unfortunate poor man's son,
Now in the city I make some poems
And play the darling of the hour,

And I am loved by you all,
And my gossip—
there are many ears seeking.
What is there to fear?
Though I claim to walk upright,
I am like one crucified upside down,
living a meager existence.

From above or from below—
Observe my actions freely—
What is there to fear—
Enduring gossip's collateral damage—
If it terrifies you—

Lover,

Take back freely what you will,

I - through winters spent in northern villages -

Where sea booms eternal against cliffs,

Having resisted, I have spent these years.
The world's gossip compared to nature's roaring waves—
Neither reaching such thunderous heights,
Nor enduring through eternity.