Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Miyamoto Yuriko

June 1

I am a spiritual loafer

With no settled home, no tethered stake,

Following my heart, from town to town
From alley to alley,
I wander through the spiritual kingdom.
Like some people, I cannot find peace in classics alone.
Nor, like some people,
Nor in Cubism's eye-dazzling brilliance.
Dada might be interesting,
But even that,
For me, from time to time,
Passing by—grazes my heart—a single line of townscape.
However, that I am a loafer—
Please do not think of it through desolate imaginings.
I joyfully

I see all things, feel all things.

I drink deep of nourishing fluids—strive to grow.

The amoeba—
spreads its tentacles to envelop its prey,
swiftly dissolving it into nourishment—
I
with tentacles called vitality of life
touch all things and learn their flavors,
crawling through the spiritual world.
Feeling.
Humans—truly fascinating—
I think the joy of living knows no bounds.

For,

Just consider this.

Yesterday I read the Iliad and the Divina Commedia.

The Age of Gods and thirteenth-century Italy came vividly back to life before my eyes—the simple activities, ambitions, life and death of human deities; the intricate workings of harsh earthly society; all bathed in the radiance of the spirit that cradles humanity. Did this not clearly seem to be our own?

And today I read Verlaine's poems brimming with melancholy—viewed paintings by Redon, Matisse, Klimt—until truly modern sentiments came swarming through my heart: lamentation, sensitivity, this cellular melancholy—

These are truly the characteristics of urbanites, of civilized people—
They might say these are diseases unknown to antiquity.
But equally—are these not processes of the human heart?
We—we who have ancestors possessing both their simplicity and sensitivity—

I feel all of those within me.

Uncanny midnight fantasies,

The unfathomable melancholia of civilization.

And yet, together—

I love even the most ancient primitive times and yearn for them.

I love the wild, recall tribal life

Simply and innocently—

One side of my heart whispers like a stream.

And yet, the other—with infinite vision, hearing, and taste—

minutely, minutely; keenly, keenly—

I decompose existence and reconstruct it.

Consideration (1)

If the Japanese people—

Philosophy akin to Europeans'

If there is no consciousness of god,

I think remaining purely as we are is acceptable.

As long as one possesses the spiritual strength to touch humanity’s essence.

As long as there exists a soul that can visit the temple in the depths of the spirit.

However, what must be considered is—if the spirit were strong in that way—surely distinctive religions and philosophy—both equally aiming to master humanity and the universe—would manifest through such desire and inquiry. Lately I have felt a clear difference emerge between Japanese of the feudal era and Meiji 30s-40s...

between present-day Japanese in their mid-twenties and

I felt that a truly clear difference had arisen,

I held this in my heart as a profound conviction.

Consideration (2)

In creative work too—
I think there exist various motives (internally).
Someone like Ibsen—
from their blazing sense of justice and ideals—
unable to endure the human folly they witness—
there are those who write from interrogation.
Or someone—like Goethe (perhaps)—
from an exuberance of thought—

Or perhaps—unable to harmonize with the external world—
as the sole expression of a lonely soul
humanity has been offered many arts.

Now,

Why do I write a single novel—

Of course it comes from that common human desire to truly touch—

However, not out of anger, nor out of sorrow—

loving all things—i.e.,

like a child

delighting in various things, holding curiosity toward them

touching them with my hands, unraveling them, and then again—

wanting to reassemble them and write—is that not why?

One by one,
Each time I delve into a new phenomenon,
I—the knowledge of life—
cannot help but feel that ever-expanding joy.

I cannot help but feel the joy that has expanded to that extent.

＊

June 16

When I settled into writing novels,
Again from within me,

The poetic tone of words had fled.

Poetry was waves—wavering sunlight.

Reason lurked within emotions that melted quietly,

Thoughts flaring up like heat haze through their dissolution.

Yet a novel demanded sheer unilateral effort—

Organizing the mind, rectifying thoughts,

Like some deity of fate

I must neither lose myself nor fail to command my characters' destinies.

Along with the lovely days of late spring,

My heart that had soared lightly and high
now seeped into the ground like water，
moistening the roots of work trying to sprout.

＊

I think of my art,
When I think of its loneliness,
I cannot help but look up at the serene heavens.

Oh God, what is it that You expect of me?
What, as the means to fulfill Your command,
Has it not been granted to me?

Aimlessly, boundlessly—"Dreams race through withered fields."

Yet in one point, my faith remains unbroken—

Like an altar of sacrifice where I offered myself,

Morning and night, I strive never to let this pure smoke cease.

＊

Ah, I—
An offering censer.

The modest flame burned unceasingly,
Though the rising smoke did not cease—
Knowing not where to go, comprehending not the path it drifted along.

If this self I have offered—
If God would deign to accept

The moment of desolation
The summit of surging incense smoke
Adorned with beautiful satellites,
Deign to let it ascend to a single star.

The dazzling brilliance of heaven

My single thread of thought pierces through pale purple smoke.
Ah, let my heart be stirred
Ecstatically.

June 22

The life of desolate days—

My poor, beloved husband
He kept a pale face and remained silent.

He pressed the handmade type with nervous clatter.

I,

Unable to laugh,

Unable to offer cheerful words,

Together we remained silent, lost in thought.

Ah, what a lonely life it was!

When I was a daughter in the past,
Before I loved him
I—
This desolate life—

Did I ever imagine such a life existing in this world?

What closes your heart so tightly?

Please—won't you tell me plainly?

Indescribable dissatisfactions and discomforts

They filled the house and gnawed at my heart.
They tormented.
I wanted a happy, unclouded life.
If I considered the love and sincerity that filled my heart—
I found it strange that this was not granted.

He who was called my one and only beloved person—

To make me shed tears so single-mindedly—

Did he appear before me

Tears.

My flowing, scattering tears

Where should I pour them—
My beloved's heart lies distant and unyielding.
I cannot even imagine dissolving into tears.
Ah, my tears—
I shall not lament.
I, alone in my humble

To my artistic garden
I will send these drops of water.
If the soil is soft, flower bed—

Soak up my tears damply,
Nurture the tender buds for me,
So that flowers too may bloom—

Are my tears not too bitter?—

＊

Because of him,

Thousands of times

I shed—my tears.

Had I not met him at all—

Had I not met him at all.

July 12

The slanting light of five o'clock dusk

Quietly falling onto the manuscript paper.
My heart beckons.—

Pure white paper, within gentle dotted lines—
What did it wish to make me write?

Thoughts deepening, the pleasant swelling of intellect.

I, on the verge of embarking upon new work,

I am in a joyous, heart-quickening time of ferment.

Once the door of my heart opens,

Thereupon,

The world I create will surge forth.

Drop by drop.

Like water droplets forming a diamond fountain,

Character by character,

From between the characters I write

A life that lives, cries, laughs, and envelops the era.

It will press upon the readers' hearts.

The faintly white manuscript paper

The light of five o'clock in the afternoon.

For a while, remain in that meaningful emptiness.

Soon, you all—

Spin though I may, spin though I may

Pierce humanity’s joys and angers.

A time will come when shock and awe make the quiet kei tremble.

August 30

Suddenly—a star that had strayed from its orbit
Crossing autumn's vast expanse—
It fell.

Where is it going—

Nature held its breath.

I gazed intently at the tail of the pale luminescent body.

Where does it intend to fall—

I knew.

Of its own accord—the flow of my heart drew near

In the shadow of that distant, distant grove

Youth's

There lay a fallen star.

Pan!

Pan!
Pan!

O cheerful ancient Pan!

I beg you—with your merry shepherd's flute—

Cleanse this breast of mine.

Make me forget this lonely smile.

A lifetime's love—my love

My love becomes this pitiable [five-character blank].

Neither able to rage nor forget the face of my foolish beloved.

The anguish that consumes the self—

It seeps profoundly into the soul.

Ah—how I yearn for that guileless heart of old.

(Eighteen-year-old rationality!)

That cloudless sky—how I long for it.

O Pan, O Pan!
By the sound of your flute,
Will my youth never return?
Will the sparkling light of May never return?

*

My person.

What are you doing now—

Hundreds of ri from the city

Even in a desolate rural area,

Your visage—it stands before my heart,

The movements appear vividly before my eye.

A slightly aged eight-tatami room

A large desk and goldfish in the water basin.

You are wearing a white yukata.

Now he is before books,

now at the veranda’s edge,

or perhaps gazing at the surface of the watered garden trees

with that very Oriental ease—

he would be gazing quietly at them.

Separated by distance

In my heart, knowing we’ll never meet again—
Quietly tracing the visage.

Do you understand my heart?

Once I call him my beloved husband—

The bond runs deep; the ties prove unbreakable.

As but one woman—how much would I,

How desperately would I cling to you as man?

A trembling embrace and

Should I recall those earnest eyes,

My heart too grows faint.

Become a beast in this depth—

I even wish to immerse myself in this overwhelming passion.

But,

O my beloved!
O my—beloved!
Ah, you…—

O God.

I—

You who were granted life—

Though I try to dread, revere, and submit—
The anguish in my chest
I find it nearly unbearable.

＊

What melancholy!

August’s sky was thick with clouds,
shining white, gold, and purple.
Upon the earth the grains had ripened—heavy-laden though they bent.
Ah! What melancholy!
My heart… aches unbearably—

Radiance and color—

Radiance and color seemed to have utterly forgotten their joy.

The one who was once unparalleled in my delight—

Now—

the unparalleled being who births this desolation...

You—
In what rift of clouds—
Are you floating that familiar profile?

The Thirty-First

Not singing, not speaking my heart—

Northwest wind—

Blow it into that distant breast—
Like stagnant water
Into that distant heart—fixed and unmoving.