Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Hara Tamiki

Yesterday’s Rain

Stroll

No one should be here.

And were there no trees,

Otherwise,

How could I cherish this desolate heart?

Cherish it?

Ant

People occasionally passed along the distant road.

The shadow was as small as an ant.

I gaze, thinking myself an ant.

Like a young child looking through tearful eyes
I dimly ponder that.
Desk
Doing nothing.
Time passes.
That mountain
is always far

April

Not even rising.

Outside was dazzling.

Somehow quietly—
is being lost
View

It exists to be gazed upon

It had clung to the mountain,
but something like a house stood in the far distance—
As I pondered this,

The pure white thin cloud had already vanished.

Late Spring

As one dozed,
leaves swayed on the roof.
Their sound stayed faint.

There was no longer any way to think.

Summer

In the swelling sky

Small birds flew.

The daytime was crisply bright.

Only the birds stirred; shadows were absent.

River
I attempt to cherish—
sighs intermingle
the riverside here
lies hazily vast.

River

The river's water flows.
Nothing of note.

Having come,
before long
I quietly wanted to return.
Indian summer.
The trees were green.
The top of the slope was orange.
What else had been there?
I could no longer recall.

I was simply walking in a tranquil mood.

autumn sky

A single slope lies distant

the blueness of the sky seen at its end

Atop the slope, the sky

The autumn sky lies distant.

Distant Vista

Was it young?

The mountain lay flat.

Distinctly solitary.

The sun crimsoned.

Winter

Frozen Landscape

Twilight is kind.

Colorless margins.

Walking softly,

ripples.

Everything was hazy.

The sky too was hazily blue.

On the water's surface, ripples were faint.

Lost in guileless contemplation,

compassion.

Silently, bursting from the branch,

burst.

Reflected against the sky,

the blue-tinged snow.

Moonlit Night

Clouds and mist were white.

Faintly white.

Roads and houses too

Were scattered here and there.

Pale Vista

Of pale hues

A delight?

Remaining as it was.

The trees stood in rows.

Fatigue.

Walked through the snow.
Looked at the pure white road.
Sleeping soundly.
He was profoundly absent-minded.

In Kyoto — Mourning Poem

Let it be gazed upon—

Frost on the Roof Tiles

Thinking it like a dream—

How beautiful this frost is—

Spring View

Clouds flowed aimlessly,
Growing more beautiful as they drifted.
In spring-lit fields and mountains,
Today he came and lingered.

Wayfarer's Musings

Behind the mountains and streams,

There was a sky.

The sky pervades every corner of spring.

It remains faintly.

Mountain

Shadows may be faint,

Thoughts are heavy.

Since it was a mountain veiled in mist,

Since it was a mountain hidden among mountains,

Treetop

The treetop he suddenly noticed—
Gentle
Green hazed away.
Quietly.

Cloud
My solitary self was dear.
Clouds were dear too.
Time did not pass.
Hazily existing in the sky.

River Fragments

1

Like the river—

Soundless.

Riverside

The riverside's

2

The color of the sky

Does desolation differ?

Reflecting water

Also reflected in water.

3

Thoughts congeal,

They become a single stream of river.

4

If distant,

Does the river lie hidden?

Does it flow?

Eternally.

5

In the river of this world
what binds

In the river of this world
things flowing onward

Sea

Is it not asleep?

Sea

a sea dimmed to fleetingness

this coiled life rends

I truly cannot know all things.

May

A distant morning came.

Ah, the green sways gently.

Wind crossing the cloudless sky

What reason have I come today?

White sails.

That was a slow-moving ship though.

The spring breeze swayed the wheat.

In a child’s eyes, everything was dazzling.

Pure white sails floated.

Occasional Composition

Having come on a journey

He saw the sun redden.

Morning dawned upon the frost-laden farmhouse.

The coastal pine grove lay clear.

The monochromatic sea looked cold.

Spring Rain

The rain, since nightfall,

grew even quieter.

After I lay down,

The falling was vividly rendered.

Winter Clear Sky

A winter-clear midday’s

The vastness of the blue sky.
Along the tram line,
He walked wearily.
Spring noon.
Having grown tired of basking in the sun,
When he tried to return home,
The coldness of the garden stone gently brushed against him.
In hushed stillness, the shōji was visible.

April

Daytime lay within shallow sleep.

While regarding his body as something faint,

For a while, he did not hear the birds' voices.

A sensation of a gentle breeze blowing

Cherry Blossom Viewing

Through gaps in the cherry blossoms

He gazed at the blue sky

Then a chill settled over him

The blossoms seemed not of this world

Fresh green leaves

Morning dew now.
Dripping down.
Even if he gazed idly at the trees,
The sky's fresh verdure lay profound.

Staying awake— —To Kumadaira Takeji

The shoji panels were dimly aglow.

Step out into the corridor and look.

But that gentle light was—
somewhere piercing

Yesterday’s rain

The green grassy plain stretched endlessly.
The skylark’s song in the sky
Soon grew desolate.
Gently blazed.
It glowed fiercer than yesterday’s rain.
The heat haze blazed thickly.

On the desk
Peony flower
That very flower
In eyes devoid of strength
Is reflected.

Journeying Rain

Rain-drenched and misted mountains—

Mountains stretched beyond mountains.

It was midday, yet—

The rain would likely fall all day.

Blue sky,

The hollow yet deep

nagamanako,

Burning boundlessly, it spread out—

To grieve what must be grieved.

Lyric

Not thoughts sent to others

A pond where lotus flowers float

The pond brims with water

Ripples follow where the wind leads

Winter mountain range

Today he rode the train,

looked at mountains.

The loneliness of the Chugoku mountain range—

Leaving the city behind to gaze upon mountains,

mountains piled upon mountains.

The winter sky was a gentle thing.

Fragment

Wisteria Flowers

Quietly, the wisteria flowers were blooming.

Swaying in the morning breeze.

Dew drips softly.

In the dimness,

Summer

The sky above the mountains—

It is deep blue.

A single cloud floats.

Deep blue.

Noon

Around the rapeseed flowers
A butterfly fluttered about.
Rapeseed flowers were abundant.
The butterfly fluttered about.

Morning.

Morning had long since arrived

Only sparrows were chirping.
The cherry blossoms were radiant.
The sky was blue and clear.

Autumn Night

A katydid was chirring.

In the kitchen’s dirt floor, it was chirring.

It was chirring too close by.

The voice that resonated—chirr chirr chirr.

Morning Darkness

Morning darkness hovered before the eyes.

Silver-hued morning darkness.

If one listened quietly—an empty carriage.

Clatter clatter clatter—an empty carriage.

Hollow Sorrow

Upon the slope where green glows radiant,
Ah, how it grieves—the sky's blue.
Though I turn not from shining things,
Behold the birds dissolving into sky.
Rapeseed Flowers

Alongside the river’s flow
The self-formed rapeseed field—
Beneath the blue sky that lasted all day
Bright flowers bloomed.

The sound of waves
Now they crash anew
The sound of waves heard for the first time
Crashing and crashing—the sound of waves
The scent of the tide at the dark bedside

Winter Garden

Moving things did not freeze

The light of unfrozen water—

Sliding over stones, flowing away

The dark water’s light—

February

Cry out, butterbur sprouts
The rain falls whispering back and forth,
In the task of moistening darkness,
Cry out, butterbur sprouts.

Train Window

Peach blossoms in full bloom

Two or three elementary school students

They were on the morning road.

But the train did not stop.

December

In the cold-exposed sky

Light balloons bobbed up one after another

A single one floated.

What can be seen from there?

June

Still half my body slept,
The morning was utterly clear in the rainy season.
The weather turned fine.
Truly, that was so.

Insomnia Song

夜耿耿而不寝兮

魂営営而至曙

(1)

Beneath the shining of dazzling things
How dreadful the visage of night
A soul utterly drained of color
At dawn, it must perish.

(2)

If it be sin, then endure it I must.

Thud thud thud thud—break of day

The sound of washing rice reaches me.

How is it that I do not sleep?

Voice

Echoing through the May morning,

In the produce market a voice exists.

The rows of carts stood all in line.
The green things rose piled like mountains.

In the produce market there is a voice

Late Spring

If the creature of reality were a bird,

swoosh swoosh, it would glide through

Today, yesterday, again tomorrow—

Ah, one who laments spring has hidden in the hackberry tree.

May

With fluid sensation coursing through me

I am holding a poppy flower.

In the train car—oh young maiden.

In the gently blowing morning breeze

Winter Day

The crimson-flame sun—
today lies desolate in ash-gray hues
Having bought spring onions
through skeletal woods I made my return

Nocturne

(1)

Knowing day, do you not know night?

Behold—Mita at one in the morning
What refreshing snowbell trees these were!
On the midden, dew gleamed bright

(2)

Roofs that drank rain to keep living
The roof became midnight's tongue
That tongue had parched completely
The roof drank the rain drop by drop

Window

Who opened the window for me?

The sky? Was it you?

The pampas grass on the cliff rustled softly.

It swayed amidst flowing clouds.

Moonlit Night

(1)

Could the river's far side be another river?

What exists beyond?

The moon hangs high in a vast sky,

Now both water and shore lie distant.

(2)

The moonlit night's water surface

With every breath, it changes

becoming mist, for instance,

becoming darkness and becoming light

Envoi

Emerging from the realm of wakefulness,

Why did the heat haze shimmer?

When waking in a spring evening,

Through the treetops—a wind cold.

Recollection

(1)

Drifting in on the spring breeze

Struck by the scent of mugwort

If you pour milk into black tea,

Thoughts grow turbulent, turbulent, melting away

(2)

Spring sunlight reflected in a bucket
Ceilingward it cast its reflection, swaying
Swaying on the floor - being there and gazing

I think what the young child thinks.

Postscript: The poems collected here are from around Taisho 12 to Showa 3, but their essence already flickers like heat haze - indistinct.
Now as I reread them piece by piece through these fragments' shimmering veils - might this too not be heat haze?
The appendix contains prose poems written during Showa 11.

September 2, Showa 16. As I prepared to gather valuable items for evacuation during air raids, I hurriedly made a clean copy.

Why Am I Afraid? (From around Taisho 12 [1923]*)

1

I dislike shadow figures because they lurk in dark places.
They hide beneath trees and hedges, waiting to leap out and seize me.

2

The lion's flute is no good because it's golden.
That violently trembling thin sound instantly sniffs out my ghastly pale face from afar.

3

The problem with cat’s eyes is that they’re too beautiful.
Things that shine too brightly aren’t exactly comforting—and what’s more—that cry has such a resentful quality to it.

4

The blackened teeth of old women and women’s gold teeth look like bugs or something—it’s unbearable.
And when they laugh, those bugs squirm and wriggle.

5

Upon merely seeing lunatics and cripples, I can tell they despise me.
If they kill me in such a bizarre way, it’ll be disastrous, so I run away.

*Editor’s note—Published in September 1926 (Taisho 15) in the inaugural issue of the domestic coterie magazine Jinchōge.*

Prose Poem

Banquet

Inlaid with dry stars, the night sky clung tightly to the earth.
The dust-covered zinc roof had become as if crushed, so the humans inside emerged from the house in similarly crushed forms.

Outside lay a dusty road still retaining daytime heat.
The lukewarm road loomed white and hazy.
This road, like the secret of a thoroughly exhausted human soul, hung uncanny and wistful, no longer attempting to utter a word.
The spent humans paused awhile to gaze at the dusty path, then slipped back into their cramped dwellings again.…

The rain had seemingly forgotten to visit this earth any longer, and a uniform breathlessness filled both the cramped interiors and the roads. The sleepless humans had already resigned themselves to being unable to sleep.

However, suddenly, a faint sand-scattering sound began upon the zinc roof. It had begun falling tentatively, but soon the rain arrived with a roaring sound and vigorous force. Roofs, trees, roads—all of them began to weep. They clung to the rain and wailed bitterly.

A Stroll

There was a man walking along the banks of the River of Forgetfulness, smiling.
It seemed they had all forgotten the memories from when they were alive.
And yet that man continued walking in good spirits.
He smiled exactly like a mischievous little girl, his eyes trying to fix on something and his lips perpetually attempting to speak.
A cool sun flowed through the haze, and he had only just now awakened.
If he grew sleepy again, he would simply sleep.

May Darkness

The lips of the dark enchantress were too crimson, jet-black.
In the pitch-black midnight where hazy heaven and earth gaped open, green frogs cried out in shrill desperation—their cacophonous croaking wringing life itself into sound.
No longer knowing which country's hour it was, the train raced on in desperation.
To escape the clamoring voices pursuing it, the train hurtled forward at a speed that threatened derailment.

Chinese Lantern Plant

Rain began to fall sparsely upon the fruits of the Chinese lantern plant; in the faint darkness beneath its leaves, the sound of a single mosquito lingered before fading away.
In the dimness, the Chinese lantern plant’s fruits ripened fully; branches bent low as the plant emitted a strange groan, touched the ground, and nearly transformed into living lips.
At this moment, in a corner of the sky, a green flash streaked through.
The truly stern eyeball shone.

Autumn Rain

The rain soaked the night field thoroughly, and even the pale searchlight beam moving across the sky was drenched.
In the darkness, the searchlight swayed gently, gradually being directed this way.
The beam crept upward toward the second floor as if peering this way.
The man at the window watching held his breath for a moment.

Mourning Period

A

Where I had been sleeping grew indistinct. Morning light and sounds drifted through the air—it seemed time I should rise—but with my wife sitting silent at my bedside, I felt permitted to linger in detachment. My nerves lay utterly frayed regardless, my soul still wailing without cease. Yet as proof nothing had changed, she kept vigil like a shadow beside me......when suddenly came the sound of footsteps climbing stairs—distinctly reaching my ears—and through my haze I thought: those footfalls must be my wife coming to rouse me. Then the steps drew near the room's entrance; the door opened. At that instant—the shadow at my side stood up, hastened toward my wife in the doorway, and before their approaching forms could meet, they melted into one being. And naturally then, I was shaken awake by my wife.

B

In the sleepless darkness, I smoked a cigarette.
Lying on my back as I smoked with the cigarette held above my face, I gradually became entranced by the beauty of its tiny flame.
What first appeared within the small red flame was a mansion and garden somewhere.
In the garden, ferns and Japanese banana plants grew thickly, and lights were lit in the mansion’s glass windows.
The view was too precise and scorching.
As the cigarette’s ember gradually burned downward, I now thought a face seemed to float into view.
What truly appeared next was the face of someone utterly unknown.
Amidst the ashes, dazzlingly shining—it was the gaze of life.

Wandering

I trudged through the park in my hometown.
In the typhoon's aftermath, the sky stood profoundly blue.
The October afternoon light touched the leaves of restless plants... Over ten years prior, I had stepped into the shrine garden I often visited with Zenmura Goro.
Bush clover flowers were blooming.
The pines on the mountain behind swayed one by one.
In the deathly quiet garden where no one seemed present, I had a dead friend with me.
Rather, I even feel as if I were dead.
Suddenly, the sound of a dog barking caught my ear.
A puppy the size of a toy now came barking to reproach me.

Untitled

The sleep that arrives at anguish’s farthest limit was precisely like prayer.
I had wanted to trace it forever.
Let both wailing and rage be dissolved into hollow sleep.

Ah, but at this moment, the ghost came and seized my hair.
"What exactly are you doing about the pressing demands of real life?" In her extreme agitation, she launched herself at me.

Two Lyric Chapters

A Beautiful Spring Day

There certainly exists a beautiful spring day.
Even in this dark, dark human world, such things undoubtedly existed.

Strangely enough, I recall it as one cohesive image.
For me, there exists a spring landscape framed like a painting.
The misted sky, purple mountains and green road spoke to even the middle schooler's mind as anguish itself, driving him to pursue that vanished instant.
Then indeed a window frame materialized.
There by that window, I—as a child—grieved.
Gazing at April's exquisite sky, I had been entranced watching that day begin to slip away.
To name what warranted such rapture—that day was the Peach Festival: my sister happily cooking beef scraps in a toy pot over a miniature stove, exclaiming when they were done.
Yet my mind overflowed with something far more beautiful that day.
What is beauty? In the end—it must be nothing at all.

Now—taking my nap—the sky so deeply blue—I saw myself in a dream weeping bitterly, longing to transform into that very azure.
In this desolate transient world, I too have a harsh, dark life.
Yet what in life could possibly hold more urgency than a dream?
There certainly exists a beautiful spring day.

Clouds

Clouds take on countless forms; as I gaze upon them, the very time spent watching dissolves and blends away.

At first I thought those clouds were symbols—shadows of beasts or souls.
I had found clouds resembling Napoleon’s face and clouds shaped like a tengu’s beak.
Above the pomegranate tree, clouds drifted.

Clouds were all maps and sighs that endlessly transformed under the wind’s influence.
Clouds of summer evenings blazing gold, clouds of autumn noons murky and hesitant—there remained the middle school student that was me, who never wearied of gazing upon them.

At some indefinable point I ceased my cloud-gazing habit.
I forgot even the blue sky arching above my head and wandered through shabby years.
Yet still the clouds flowed ceaselessly.
And now when I gaze at clouds anew, they are simply clouds continuing from time immemorial.

The Season of Fresh Verdure

Dappled Sunlight

Under the eaves, green plum leaves grew thick and deep; across from them, the blue sky formed an abyss; and my elderly mother blinked at the dazzling stripes of dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves.

"The shapes of things have grown indistinct, you know. Even if you were to approach from across the way, I’d know it was you—but your face remains unclear, you see."
The plum trees in my hometown had grown so tall they were unrecognizable, and yet the early summer sun blazed with such intensity.

Pine Buds

I visited that island.
The island raised its verdant shoulders while every path seethed with rage.
Pine buds stretching from cliffs at my feet trembled sharply under sunlight’s glare as they reached toward an oily blue sky.

Twilight

The twilight of the verdant season evoked friendship.
On the way to meet that friend, I passed through a winding slope.
Around the slope, fresh verdure swayed, and gentle lights were visible.
Blackened cliff rocks and dusty houses tangled together, and the road naturally turned into a dead end.
Then from the entrance of a certain house, suddenly, the friend's face appeared.

“That evening was enjoyable, wasn’t it?” said that friend much later.

Morning Noon Evening

There exists such a thing as a refreshing morning when physical and mental fatigue have been moderately alleviated.
This proves somewhat treacherous.
"Today I can do anything!"—and from within that void emerges an outlandish dream.
Yet by the time I wash my face and take pause, it becomes wounded by the most trivial matters.
Once wounded, the dream turns utterly timorous until finally shriveling back into emptiness.
Might it be that precisely because it was too refreshing, the day concludes hollow?

○

In the muddied afternoon oppressing both body and mind, people waited for the train beneath a damp wind. Even were I to visit someone today, nothing worthwhile would come of it—I considered returning to my room to lie down instead—yet it seems those driven to desperation are fated to go calling on others. What's more, within this blurred atmosphere, the other's mind must be equally clouded—and though irritation lingers, friction might paradoxically refuse to spark.

○

A page from the book I read while smoking cigarettes suddenly gnawed its way into my brain late at night.
Though it contained nothing splendid at all, yet simply because it had imprinted itself clearly in my head, a strangely light excitement swirled up, and sleepless thoughts kept wandering endlessly around that notion.
From here, nothing should ever be born—and yet chaos still encircled all that was clear, as though already preparing the weariness for tomorrow.