The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series)
Page 122
All the Japanese in all of Japan!
Stand up and send your blood to the Ryūkyūs!
Ah, descendants of Nabi in Onna, comrades in blood!
Crouch down in the shade of palm leaves
Avoid the bullets, put out the fires of war,
Go forth bravely and utterly destroy our evil enemy!
Translated by Leith Morton
YOSHIDA ISSUI
Yoshida Issui (1898–1973) was born into a fishing family in Hokkaido. His youth was spent at the family herring-fishery on the Shakotan Peninsula. Forced by bad eyesight to abandon his ambition to take up the family trade, Issui turned to literature. In 1913 he went to Tokyo to pursue his literary studies and began submitting his poems and tanka to various literary journals. In 1917 Issui enrolled in the English department of Waseda University but did not complete his studies. Between 1940 and 1945, he wrote his masterpiece, the poem “Swans” (Hakuchō).
SWANS (HAKUCHŌ)
1
Melting in the hand, sign of the Big Dipper
. . . But it must open, this flower inside.
Behind, an hourglass runs out.
2
Lighting a lamp, in the loneliness where finally I can turn only to myself.
Wild ducks migrate.
River headwaters still frozen.
3
Chop some wood.
Village of weeds asleep.
Delta growing huge.
4
Cricket under a stone mortar.
John’s gospel chapter two: a single raisin.
Sunset.
5
Walking over, measuring the plowed soil, gripping ancient seeds.
The flowers of the field, a solitary singing maiden.
Rubia cordifolia.
6
Prehistory of reeds.
Waterfowl eggs in hand, grinning, licking reed-cuts, the child of Susano-o.
Beating out the sword with sacred soil.
7
Brimming over with blue sky, a lake drop-spout connected to the purity of underearth.
A hook is hurled into the center of the lake.
Swans will come, to this volcanic island chain, along the ancient road.
8
Hypothesize a white circle.
A glass meridian.
A body falling in four dimensions.
9
A wave caws.
At water’s edge, line without beginning, a crow’s questioning continues.
Sand slipping away . . .
10
Searching for Cygnus, a boat without lanterns enters the harbor.
On a new system of oblique coordinates at the pole of 30 degrees magnetic a giant
elephant from an ancient green land will appear.
Lost ancient blueprint on the Santa Maria.
11
Swans come from the unknown.
Mother-of-pearl tower where sun, moon, and stars dive under the waves.
Where am I going? O transparent vertigo of self.
12
The bell of time shakes the pale air.
No one, no one returns . . .
On the roof a half-ruined bird’s nest.
13
I blow out the lamp, only my glittering dream holds me,
Dead weeds are stirring.
The winter constellations are here.
14
Euclidean constellations.
Beginning to creak: ice-scoured transmigration of people beasts gods orbiting in
concentric circles, at right angles to me.
All through the night the cracking of an erratic boulder.
15
On the ground magnetic sands, a ceaseless spring bubbling.
Swans once again take flight!
Clouds lift, salt begins to crystallize, mountains and rivers cry aloud!
Translated by Leith Morton
KUSANO SHINPEI
Kusano Shinpei (1903–1988) was born in Fukushima Prefecture. In 1921 he journeyed to China, where he made friendships that endured for the rest of his life. In 1928 he wrote his first book of poetry, about frogs, and from 1940 to 1943 he worked in Canton as an adviser to the puppet government. Most of his Mount Fuji series of poems were written during this period and thus contain both patriotic and Pan-Asiatic elements. The following poems are from this first Mount Fuji series.
MOUNT FUJI (FUJI SAN, 1943)
3
From the beginning of time.
Hundreds of millions of days and black nights.
A great body sitting heavily within the vast vacuum of time.
Ah.
From confrontation after confrontation.
Though it be only a tiny gesture, I sang small songs.
And yet far far away from my praise.
Far far away
A soaring harmonic.
An inexhaustible body.
A fierce, great white spirit.
6
A piece of the heavy dark cloud moves suddenly. It mushrooms.
Mushrooming mushrooming spiraling up like an electric corkscrew
in an instant to the heavens. Cloud spirals loops the loop.
In the lonely dark dusk spiraling spearing through the thick
cloud-mass to the heavens above No. 1 mountain. [Ah. The
same old road. The same old loop the same old mess of cloud.]
Out of a violent, bitter dread. Flexing scales drenched
by the sea, it rose straight as an arrow. Bzzbzzbzzbzz that’s
the lash of its thick wiry vibrissa. Frenzied cloud colliding
disintegrating makes its torso trochilics of 6 & 8. Empty
talons tearing at the wind. Burning eyes penetrate the darkness.
Beyond turn & twist & trochilics. From a forever eternal sight.
Ecstatic thundering blows it the cloud away.
As far as the far-off horizon the sea is calm.
Inside the cave against which the tide breaks.
Silence.
In a perfectly clear orange sky.
The black massive.
Roof of Japan.
17
After thousands millions billions of years.
By the end of billions of years.
All life on earth may have died.
Trees grass birds frogs men.
Perhaps even moss & trepang.
Blue ice serrating cracking.
All will change that much.
Yet even after for a time Fuji squats stark.
O terrible beauty! Unmatched even in the age of fire.
The spirit of the Japanese people.
There gathers freezes.
White flame.
Blows from the summit.
Heaven silently descends to see this faith.
To Matsukata Saburō in the mountains
Translated by Leith Morton
OGUMA HIDEO
Oguma Hideo (1901–1940)—much admired by Nakano Shigeharu, some of whose poems are included in the previous chapter—was brought up in Hokkaido but moved to Tokyo in 1926 and joined the proletarian literary movement. In his most mature poetry, Oguma achieved, in the words of his translator, David G. Goodman, “a truly compassionate, multicultural worldview.”
LONG, LONG AUTUMN NIGHTS (CHANGJANG CH’UYA, 1935)
Weep not, Korea!
Old women, weep not!
Weep not, sweet maidens!
The laundry block will laugh at you!
Tok-tack, tok-tack, tok-tack.
What is that sound?
It comes from the wooden mallet You hold in your hand.
When night falls,
Every house in the village
Emits the sound:
Tok-tack, tok-tack-tok-tack.
There are no trees on the mountains of Korea.
Really? How unfortunate!
And no food in the houses.
Sad indeed!
“There, there, be a good child,
The gods see all.”
Rocking side to side
In their accustomed rhythm,
The old women are beating the white clothes
On laundry blocks
With wooden mallets.
Tok-tack, tok-tack.
“Yes, yes,
Such a nice sound!”
I can’t understand my son and my daughter,
But I know something about my father,
My father’s father,
And about the Korea of old.
The dirty wax in these ancient ears
Is forever murmuring about them.
On long, long autumn nights,
In the pale moonlight
Beneath village roofs
The women beat,
Tok-tack, tok-tack.
For thousands of years
They have beaten their garments white
On rocks and blocks of wood,
Starched them and pressed out the creases,
And joyfully given their men
Fresh clothes to wear.
Ravens wheeled gently overhead
And the Naktong River
Flowed peacefully.
Not like today,
When village headmen
Invade people’s houses
On the slightest pretext,
Waving papers, shouting.
Our sons and daughters
Used to be comfortable in the village
And listened when their elders spoke.
But these days, a restless wind
Ruffles their white skirts.
They want to leave the village and cross the mountains.
If only we could get beyond the mountains,
Beyond the mountains lies happiness, they say,
And they cross the mountains
As if driven.
I understand
Your betrothed
Left your poor village
And is working hard in Tokyo,
Plowing through mountains of trash
And sewage,
Looking for gold.
He’ll come back for you
The minute he finds some,
Won’t he, sweet maiden?
But, ah! When will that be?
Many leave,
But none return.
My husband would sing through the night.
He was so proud of his voice, so proud to work.
Now he’s dead and gone.
My teeth are so weak,
I can’t break a thread anymore.
The laundry mallet has grown heavy.
The damned ravens won’t be shooed away,
And the bugs keep buzzing.
They have nothing but contempt
For an old woman.
Whatever happened to the old Korea,
To joyful Korea?
Dear gods,
Will Heaven ever let Korea up for breath?
Old and young alike
Toss and turn through endless nights.
Tok-tack, tok-tack-tok-tack.
The sound of the laundry block
Has lost its old joy.
The moon still rises over the hills,
But young people no longer saunter beneath it.
Ah! We are being eaten by demons!
The old women heard them:
Chomping and slurping,
Demons devouring mountain forests.
Girls go to the river for water and drown.
Young men drink themselves blind,
And gamble,
And argue with the landlord,
And organize a “farmers’ union”—
Whatever that is—
And flee the village.
The minute something happens,
They want to sound the alarm
Tok-tack, tok-tack, tok-tack
They prefer not to wear
The bleached Korean dress
The old women work so hard
To make white and fresh on the laundry block.
They wear straw hats, Western clothes,
Pomade on their hair.
And then yesterday
The village headman ordered everyone
To appear before him,
Even the old women.
One after another,
They streamed to his office.
He towered over them
And shouted:
Times are changing!
The most important thing
In today’s civilized world
Is to obey the rules.
Tax obligations, for example.
You had better pay up!
And then, you old woman in particular!
Listen up,
You stubborn old bats,
This constant racket through the night
Has got to stop!
Toktacktoktack!
How’s anybody supposed to sleep?
In the first place, that toktack’s no good for the cows.
It gets on their nerves,
Won’t give milk worth a damn.
In the second place, starting tomorrow,
No one wears white Korean dress.
In accordance with the regulations
Governing modern clothing,
Everyone wears black, got that?
Black clothes don’t get dirty.
So there’s no need to wash them.
Starting tomorrow,
All you old washerwomen
With your infernal toktacktoktack,
Leave your laundry blocks
And weave rope!
Toktacktoktack!
Damn you all to hell!
The headman shook as he bellowed
The young people left,
But the old stayed.
Like snowy herons, they doubled up,
Like hooded cranes, they bowed down.
They raised their voices and wailed:
Woe is me! Mr. Headman, sir!