Poets in the Wind

Image borrowed from Bing


Day Six, and as the workers scamper from the six
nuclear plants, and the dead pile up in the tens
of thousands, as death puts its battalions of
demons into the fields and cities of Japan,
Bobby Byrd posted these sad and lovely poems
this morning.


I can no longer tell dream from reality.
Into what world shall I awake
from this bewildering dream?

— Akazome Emon


●


The fireflies' light
How easily it goes on
How easily it goes out again.

— Chine-Jo


●


The crying plovers
On darkening Narumi
Beach, grow closer, wing
To wing, as the moon declines
Behind the rising tide.

— Fujiwara No Sueyoshi


●


I loathe the seas of being
And not being
And long for the mountain
Of bliss untouched by
The changing tides.

— Anonymous


●


If only the world
Would remain this way,
Some fishermen
Drawing a little rowboat
Up the riverbank.

— Minamoto No Sanetomo

Translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Posted over on Bobby Byrd's site White Panties and Dead Friends