Pathway to Japanese Literature

May 1922

One afternoon, as I sat at my desk, a harmonious phrase welled up in my heart, riding on the surge of emotion.

Just as I was attempting to start a reworked novel and struggling because it wasn’t progressing well, I joyfully jotted it down.

Afterwards, such phenomena would occur from time to time.

To speak purely—whether what I write falls into the category of what is called poetry or not—putting that aside, for me, this form is the only one in which I can write. It can be called my poetry.

Gradually, I began to feel the pleasure of words flowing out without resistance.
How far would form and content develop?

For me, I found a beneficial diversion—good for both my mind and my emotions.

May 1st

Everything bursts into bud,

What a spring!

My heart—this heart of a twenty-four-year-old woman—

filled with unfamiliar yearnings,

Gasping, splintering into fragments,

It keeps trying to fly off somewhere,

Unable to settle in one place,

Ah, tree buds.
Sunlight.

My chest swells to the point of pain.

＊

When my heart filled with resonance and trembled to melody,

Even I—who knew nothing of poetic technique—ached to sing.

How to express—this sensation.

What words could capture—this tender, lonely heart brimming with yearning?

Writing my novel grew oppressive,

I hurled the manuscript paper away and swept my gaze about,

As if seeking

Some vessel—words or object—to mirror this heart whole,

As if seeking.

＊

That—that person’s poetry is good.

Elegant.
A truly astonishing resplendence of words.

But.
——
Yes.
That person’s work is splendid too.

Bold imagination.
Fantasia... Ah...

However.
—My heart simply will not be satisfied.

Thud, thud—this resonance that reverberates through my chest,

Could that rhythm be heard within those works?

This rhythm that presses down, makes one weep, overwhelms—

Does it permeate through from that source?

Ah—the things I yearn for, the things I cherish

They are things that well up solely from within me.
They burn quietly, then suddenly burst into flames,

Eventually, they faintly illuminate the surroundings.

＊

The world that had sprouted new buds
took on sharp angles and turned green.
It disrupted human hearts spreading across flat planes.
Soaked through by midnight rain,
swelling slender leaves lifted and spiraled upward.
Behold the moss drinking in the sun.
A sound seemed ready to reach the ear.
Or the Japanese aralia—sturdy, clustered, its young leaves suddenly unfurled—
a sense of vigorous vitality, a feeling of unconsciously quivering desire.

The sound of trains; automobiles speeding by.
The outdoors were awash with sound.

The boy whistled incessantly.

Inside the tranquil house, facing the desk.

I stroke my broad forehead and tousle my hair.

＊

When my heart brimmed with inspiration,

Do whatever you wish.

Paint a picture, with bold strokes, like El Greco, paint a picture.

Sing songs too,

You who weep upon hearing the beautiful Mai’s Idyll.

Quiet moonlight swayed upon the ground,

When a gentle soul invited the heart and caressed it,

Love and joy would not leave hands and feet unmoved,

Hands pursuing yearning,

Feet chasing passing shadows.

Bakusuto hid the costume within it.

＊

What a day today is!

I write poems,
I write one or two poems.
Still not satisfied—three or four
I write poems.—

The position of wife, the constraints of work—
All melt away from me.

Here, there exists only a single naked woman.

Should I sing? Should I dance?

Like a Greek maiden

Why!
Why don’t my limbs dance nimbly?

Narrow Japan, small society.

My heart expands too much.
A woman trying naively to express her emotion.
What is a naked human?

May 3rd

The true dread of art.

Truth and love fill my heart.

When I rested in faith,
I could finally begin to write.

Working becomes a joy.

A maid? What of it?

What!

When I can write things with true genuineness,
I work joyfully.
The preciousness of being alive.
Why can it never stay this way?

My heart.

＊

Poor, my heart—
leaping for joy,
crushed by sorrow—
a small boat on waves, ever swaying.

Radiantly high, nobly like the shining sun:
Why can I never become so?
Is it because my ambition is too great?

O God.

＊

At first, I thought I was a genius.

Ah, woe... woe...

However, even that dream faded.
Grateful.

Now, like a blade of grass,

If I were to approach art modestly, joyfully, earnestly.
I could find peace.

Growth.

First comes instinctive indignation.

Next, a sense of morality and justice arises.

Before long, gradually, the substance of brilliance comes into view.

Yearning and devotion occupied my entire heart.

Intuition for true art.

Yet now, many friends and so-called readers would leave you.

Because they had grown too indifferent—

Too much catching horseflies, wasps, dragonflies...

Because they can’t be seen.

＊

I write with gusto.

I am terribly hungry.

I want to eat something.
But my husband has not yet returned.
——

I sit and peer into the sideboard.

I pick up a piece of willow-patterned hard candy.

Alone, I looked around the room and savored it.

When I thought about it—don’t you agree?

I thought that humanity itself was art.

Music, painting, architecture, and literature—all of them

exist beneath our skin, within our hair, beneath our eyes.

Therefore, at times when the soul grows heated and reverberates—
Is there not such a moment when nothing can be done?
Those who can sing are blessed.
Those who embrace the universe through lines, those who cherish letters—they are blessed.
When one finds no vessel for their heart’s outpouring—
They plunge blindly into love.
They do it obsessively—
That tender core of their being—how pitifully dear it seems.

*

At times,

the married couple’s relationship—not exactly cheerful, laced with carnal desire—

Having experienced love,

Parent-child love.

Especially the father in a relationship like the one between myself and my father—

I ponder the subtlety of affectionate love.

There was not a shadow of darkness.
It harmonized and gained vitality,
nurturing individuality with serenity.

Nurtured individuality gently.
Memories swarmed and pressed in.
How I longed for Father!

Returning to myself at four or five—.

＊

Even love that fills the heart—

times when I cannot express it due to lack of money,

and how numerous those times are—

I recently realized,

I feel sorrow.
Thinking of my father—I want to give him every comfort and joy.—
Yet that consists merely of material things—
My heart’s truth remains unspoken.

However, there are times when things become necessary.

In early spring, I want to take a two- or three-day trip together.

Since childhood I was loved, and I too loved.

However, recalling my past of acting self-indulgently and willfully.

I will slowly become a good companion.
In this lifetime, I want to travel at least once or twice.
How can I dispel this feeling?

Please let a small amount of money accumulate for myself,
so I may travel peacefully with my father,

Please, until then, Father,

Stay healthy and well,

Please remain as you are now until then.

May 26

My heart is a deep well.
Draw after draw—the water never runs dry—
Bottomless feelings surge forth.
Drawing them up.

A single small well bucket.

Day in full, night through.

Humbly creaking as it turns,

The water does not run out.

My emotions know no end.

At times, I stop my tired hands

I gazed into the distant beyond.

The beautiful nature of May.

The sight of the sky with billowing white clouds.

Scattering a faint fragrance.

Roses blooming like a maiden.

However, at times my fingers grow weary.
My heart grows weary, and I look down at my feet.
Ah, my well’s small bucket—
always, always swirling.
Swirling well bucket—
water at the depths mirroring the sky—
gushes forth abundantly, then quiets down
and waits for me.

My Dear Manuscript Paper (25th May)

My dear manuscript paper

You, bearing blue lines on blank paper,
those lines
When I see you filled with a field of characters,
My heart dances.

In the morning, on the freshly wiped mahogany-colored desk,

Or, on an afternoon when sunlight gleamed,

the lattice bars of north-facing shōji

brought forth a simple Japanese square beside them.

I entered the eight-tatami room,

and as I passed the desk’s edge toward the veranda,

The glimpse I caught of your figure—
What joy this was!
I, like a nineteen-year-old lover,
From the corner of my eye, stole a glance at you.
Unable to resist, I looked at you once more.
In the end, drawn in, I found myself sitting down before you.
Endlessly gazing and gazing—
My heart found peace, as if it had returned to its homeland.

Ah, my beloved manuscript paper

Always upon your dear milky-white surface,
let gently filtered northern sunlight drift.
At night—the beautiful desk lamp—
casting its serene lush-green shadow.

Be with me

Sing, lament, dance in joy.

Beloved, beloved my
Manuscript paper.
Same Title

What pure-heartedness you possess!

When I weep, your countenance clouds inevitably.

When I quiver with delight and fix my gaze upon you,

With matching rapture, you widen your eyes and smile.

Companion of the night—

Companion of the day, and my lifelong friend: manuscript paper.

Sheet by sheet—you—

Summoned from the storehouse of a stationery shop in the town.
Gradually, many entanglements formed around me.
I listened to those voices.
I too narrated in whispers kept from others,
Unseen friendship—
An unbreakable love connected two beating hearts.

I will devote this lifetime
to your love,
I devote my life to that love.
If I convey life with all my soul,
when existence has been completely buried deep within you,
you will become splendid monuments around me.
People see merely a single sheet of paper.
However, what life lies within?
Good friend—I alone
feel your mysterious breath.

＊

When my heart sank and hope grew pale,

Good friend—you, from those dotted lines—

Radiated a sapphire-like brilliance.

Lift up my heart.

Within you—
my longed-for northern homeland’s countryside too,
there are eucalyptus leaves rustling in the sun.
What returns me to the wilds and heals my nostalgia for mysterious purity is
your
nothing but invisible doors of the heart.

Upon the infinite world,

Merely a single sheet.

Lightly, floatingly, you remain here.

If I listen closely, the voices of all things become audible.

If I cleanse my eyes, the universe reveals itself.

Awe-inspiring yet humble you.

Called paper,

Devotedly reflecting back the sun's light you do.

May 29

My heart returns to primal simplicity,

Yearning to seize the core of things in a single glance.

The complexity of modernity—Futurists, Aestheticists, Socialists,

I think they all serve life’s One Glimpse.

The origin of life, the essence of existence—

I do not believe they can ever be enlightened through knowledge or touched by it.

Grand intuition, the clairvoyance of an infant

Where I gaze selflessly,

I think there lies the true origin.

We are led astray by the concept of education.

We are troubled by the talents of working adults.

We have lost the ancient true heart like Homer’s.

Endlessly delicate, endlessly sharp.

And yet, to maintain the brilliance of life with generosity—this very act

As for humanity, as for art—
They are worthy spiritual fruits.
There the sun shines, fragrance scatters.
Even in decay, they drop seeds into the earth.

It can become the succession of life itself.

I am a humble, single servant.

Each of those fruits, one by one,

as they ripen, as they color.

I offer them up to the gods.

In the morning, I survey the garden.

I purify my body.

Heart bare,

I kneel before the marble altar.

At times, I fill an ivy basket

At times store them in a stone wax jar.

Heart far and wide—I offer prayers.

O God, the humble offerings of humankind through the four seasons—

Accept them, I pray.

Would they think the me that winter saw is the same me today?

Again, vigorous vitality now shakes my heart,
Like Samson,
Like Samson, who now lays hands on the pillars of the temple,
If God commands it,

the faith that moves mountains

Having come to the fields, returned to nature, my chest is filled.

The tumult of grass!

The earth presses close beneath me.

Oh, splendid early summer!

I return to my mother’s bosom, to the open air.

With peace of mind.

Sucked the nourishing sap of life.

I sat cross-legged.

With single-minded devotion.

Like the people of Israel,

I melted into the heavenly Father.

Civilized people.

Strange civilized people.

Why do those people—

Why don’t they sit cross-legged like Arabs?

Sitting cross-legged is good.

Beneath my small body,

I feel the strong earth.

The sky remains high; I gaze upward.

To look at the grass—

When I crouch crampedly,

Stretching my neck, I can see the stems among my own kind.

The small insects crawling on the ground,
the lovely May ground moss too—
all of them right around the body—
carry on their modest lives.

High, high—a soul without stability is lonely.
There is no path to salvation; it is desolate.
The sky hangs round and high; the earth lies low with undulations.

People kept their heads in a moderate space—
For the first time,
Two hearts pierced through the humble spirit.

Heart.

Freely, freely.

A heart that seeks to go endlessly onward.

Like a thirteen-year-old boy,

Filled with curiosity, filled with vigor,

My wild heart.

The so-called refined woman—

Temporary distinctions trouble me.

The so-called wife—

The strange fate makes me sigh and laugh.

My heart, flashing like light, tries to leap and pierce through.

The essence remains unclear even to myself.

Like a foolish maidservant,

Always afterwards, the "I"—

I chase the shadow of substance.

Chickens.

The chickens in the back shed.

Midday. They raised a shrill clamor.

Yesterday, the day before yesterday, and three days ago too.

I heard their cries from my room.

But what a detestable sound.

Sparrows made more disagreeable noises than trains, of course.

Muffled, constrained, as if in agony—
Again and again—
Cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck, Cock-a-cluck-cluck—
they cried out.
Even though the wind blew,
Even though the sky was blue,

Those voices alone were as if bound by ropes and writhing.
Even though they had laid fresh eggs,
birds that could not even sing a cheerful song—
perhaps—kept by humans, with no sky to fly in,

Because the eggs are stolen afterward.
Did they become distressed?
If that is the case—……

Ah, how pitiful, how pitiful.

Do they not even recall their days as wild fowl?

Do they not recall?

＊

The sky stretches crisp and transparent.
The wind rustles gently.
Roses bloom in full fragrance.
Now is a splendid May.

However, when I think of the coming winter—

My heart grows sad.

For the child, as evening came.

That cold.

In the pitiful wooden house—freezing head and fingertips.

I curled into myself like a rounded stone—soundless.

I lived cowering—when I thought of mornings and evenings,

If possible, into a golden jar—

I want to store away this early summer radiance.

If I held it to my chest, it would be warm.
If I peered through the lid and stole a glance, my eyes would gleam.
Joyful—my heart's delight returned.
Love melted.
A terrifying sidelong glare.

At the straight, direct gaze—I will smile.

Somewhere

This radiance and color

Is there no small basket to scoop it up?

Wise Hans Christian Andersen

In Norway,

Isn’t the air of May fragrant?