National Poetry Month: Yosano Akiko

As many of the wonderful people on my friends list have posted, April is National Poetry Month in the States. I thought I would share a few translated tanka and modern poems from my favorite Japanese poet, Yosano Akiko. All of these are taken from the compilation River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko, translated by Sam Hamill and Keiko Gibson; copyright 1996 Shambhala Press.

By a nameless stream,
small and very beautiful,
last night spent alone--
these broad, desolate fields
in the harsh summer dawn.

~~~

Does the pale priest see,
just after sunset, the girl
who dreams beneath
a flowering pink tree
this beautiful spring evening?

~~~

Agreed, we have
no talent for poetry.
We smile. This love
will last a twenty thousand years.
Is that a long time or brief?

And, cut for general propriety, ( a few more erotic poems. )