Poetry on Japan
Noh, haiku and poems on Japan
Some poems by Judy Kendall
Kimono Colours
(Heian period 794 – 1185)
plum
willow tree
butterflies spreading their wings
wild pink
yellow day lily
Chinese vine
white oak
sea pine
bell clover
moon grass
cloud and crane
tiny bamboo
An earlier version published in Equinox, UK, 2002
Wa, Harmony
The bell goes and I dismiss my class.
Tired and dishevelled, I start to pack away
my papers, wipe off chalk dust,
roll up the tape-deck lead when, "Teacher, sensei!",
a student hovers, polite, gentle, in need,
at an unobtrusive distance, offering me
a tremulous virgin face while he proceeds
in my hard language to mouth his soft apology
for missing last week's session
because he was unfortunately obliged
(oh teacher, hear out my confession)
to attend the funeral of his grandfather.
His English, slow and careful, broken,
he places in pieces on my gathered notes,
equidistant, partly as if in token
of his loss, partly in the hope
that I will read the spaces in between
the words of me and him, his duty
to the class, his unannounced departure, and fill in
the sadnesses to make consoling harmony,
but, sensing my tiredness and my need to get away
from school at this the end of a long day
and feeling shy, he leaves, and leaves me asking why
in my land we don't make young men this way.
Foreigners
Foreigners are all the same,
exotic creatures
keen on noise.
Doughnut complexions,
and fiery tempers
when not dipped in saccharine.
They prefer flesh to fish.
Filled to capacity
with selfishness,
they look after their own
first. They do not think it wrong.
There is a distinct smell of old milk.
Their sugar levels are uncertain,
liable to explode.
And most of them possess
a careless flair
for turning the neatest room
into dishevelment.
They cannot gauge politeness,
their talents do not extend
to delicate matters.
Their women are loud,
noses mostly irresistible
and faces enviably unflat
(although they wrinkle early).
They cannot sit still
and have a tendency to wriggle.
A foreigner is always big.
You never see a small one.
Published in Ambit, UK
The Most Beautiful
for Yukari
coming weary from the goldstream
dead ends every where
to the west capital
maple temples burning
red in the mixing bowl
eight thousand four hundred
taxi drivers hunt the kerb
and you pick out the local guy
the one that doesn't make up stories
the one that knows where to find
the most beautiful tree
over at the palace
down by the gate
he says
you can't miss it
Published in Indigo, UK (Capricorn International poetry competition)
Yuki-tsuriDay
The bamboo path curves upwards. The maple leaves
have just been touched by autumn.
My favourite teahouse is closed,
the house I want to live in forever.
Gold scatters on the eaves, the roof,
the stone lantern and the doorstep.
The carp swim colourlessly
in the lake, gaping for food.
Eight men in uniform – brown, turquoise, blue
tie ropes around a pole for Yuki-tsuri Day.
In the upper teahouse, the hostess talks of snow
– expected this year in the Twelfth Month.
When she leaves, the room fills with low voices
of men at work, birds, wind, the water's sound
and the clinking of the eiffel-tower
ladders, the rustle of ropes of straw.
Driving to Noto
Men are better says Toshi I know
no they are not says I (I also know)
and so we argue to the tip of Noto
To Suzu where the wood huts slump in shock
plopped suddenly in frocks of snow
and the sea is whipped to icicles of frenzy
Over a nabe pot of fish and cabbage
(Toshi warns me not to call it cabbage
for it is the vastly superior hakusai)
our host asks me my age
Taken aback
(I`m older than he thought
more single), he inquires
don't you like men?
So I assure him
only frequent country-moving
has prevented me from choosing
one of them
The returning road is white, wide as a field
the ditches spread themselves with frosting
and the windscreen blanks out like a blizzard
Toshi scrapes at the iced-up wipers singing
to himself, waving me in
Midwinter hangs in the boughs
The pine trees are bent nearly in two
laden with second helpings
An earlier version published in Ambit, UK, 2002
Midwinter
One breath
beyond the muffled
silence, and
from somewhere
comes floating
the fragrance
of a hyacinth,
light,
unexpected in the snow.
Information on Judy Kendall
Now I have been lecturing in English at Kanazawa University, Japan, from 1995 – 2002. I used to work in the UK as a writer in residence in prisons, the theatre and the community. I have also spent four years in Zimbabwe as a teacher. I have written poetry, plays and short stories in and about the UK, Zimbabwe and Japan, and am now seeking publication for a book of poems on Japan. I am also working on a collection of translations of Zeami`s Noh plays with Iris Elgrichi, a scholar of classical Japanese. Previously we collaborated on a bilingual edition of haiku (see below for samples!) with the haiku writer, Miyaji Eiko.
What is my focus as a writer? Voicing the unsaid and unexpressed. If I can act as a channel for the voices of others, I am happy.
I have had poems published all over – but most recently in Ambit, still, Equinox, Envoi and Fabric (UK), Plum-line (Canada), and, very soon, on the internet in PROOF – http://www.shu.ac.uk/proof/proof/board.htm – take a look.
My most recent prose is in PN Review and Presence (UK).
My email – saiwaicho@yahoo.co.uk – is accessible from anywhere (I hope).
Thanks for reading.
Selected haiku from
SUIKO – The Water Jar
haiku by Miyaji Eiko
(you can contact the poet at C-miyaji@k2.dion.ne.jp in Japanese, or simple English)
translations by Iris Elgrichi and Judy Kendall
22. 水甕に水の漲る梅ニ月
the season, the plum
the water jar, teetering
on the brink of spring
48. 良寛の書に触れし目を紅梅へ
turning, my eyes brush
Ryokan`s calligraphy
on the red plum blossom
96. 一別の距離たもちるて時鳥
with the cuckoo
comes the summer. Yet still distance
widens between us
133. 雁来紅繰り返し読む唐詩選
the red Amaranths
words of the T`ang dynasty
wild geese overhead
174. 彼れ透きて八木重吉の詩の余白
bare winter branches
lines of Yagi Jukichi
the whiteness between
196. 子の便り殊に短信白椿
letter from my son
white as a camellia
and almost as brief
Notes
Ryokan, whose name means "good-large-heartedness" or "gentle tolerance," was a Zen Buddhist monk and poet who lived in Japan from 1758 to 1831. He was also renowned for his beautiful calligraphy
Yagi Jukichi, 1898 – 1927, a sensitive religious Japanese poet.
Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443) is the greatest Japanese actor, playwright, and drama theorist of Japanese Noh theatre. Most of the Noh plays performed today were written by Zeami.
In our translation of Michimori we have gone to the old tradition of English poetry and employed an alliterative structure as our base.
MICHIMORI (extract)
PART 1
[Every evening, the Wa'ki (a priest) from Awa in Naruto, The Gate
of Sounds, comes to a rocky shore to read the sutras in memory of
the dead. He is drawn here by the pain of the Heike clan who
suffered, were defeated and drowned in this bay.]
Wa'ki:
Sat on the stony shore,
upon the pine rock pinnacle I wait.
Sat on the stony shore,
upon the pine rock pinnacle I wait.
A night skiff, someone calling in the spray?
I cannot tell.
A paddle dipping in the foaming deep?
Suddenly The Gate of Sounds is still tonight.
A paddle dipping in the foaming deep?
Suddenly The Gate of Sounds is still tonight.
PART 11
[The Shi'te and the Tsu're, ghosts in the form of fishermen,
appear in a fishing boat]
Tsu're:
Haaa! from a far-off temple floats the voice of a bell
sounding as if from this same shore
Shi'te:
It rings in the setting sun. We should move swiftly.
Tsu're:
The light is dwindling fast, darkness is coming.
Shi'te:
Yesterday has now departed,
Tsu're:
today is changed to dusk
Shi'te:
and tomorrow the same time will have its turn.
Tsu're:
The old cannot make firm their future faith,
Shi'te/Tsu're:
our destinies held in mere handfuls of days,
how long till we work out our wrong
ceaselessly tossed by sea gods in a fishing skiff?
Tsu're:
What future is there for the old ones? And what faith?
Shi'te:
All that is left is to live out our days.
Chorus:
Yet though lamenting, our hearts lighten a little
our hearts lighten a little
when the moon is towering at high tide above our boat.
How breath-taking the face of autumn in the bay!
Here, the night waves, the whirling waters,
skies screened by cloud above The Gate of Sounds.
There, Awaji island, a desolate inlet, far away
in a weary world, this profession of woe,
in a weary world, this profession of woe.
PART 111
Shi'te:
The black waves brew up, burying the moon
with its translucent light.
Tsu're:
In the little fishing boat the lighted lamps fade.
Darkness drops.
Shi'te/Tsu're:
Night rain runs through the rush matting,
the wind rustles in the shoreline reeds.
What sound but these wakes us from our pillowed waves?
Is it dream or reality, this reading of the sutra
blending with the blowing of the storm?
Keep still the sound of the ship's oars,
keep put the paddles.
Keep still the sound of the ship's oars,
keep put the paddles.
and listen,
listen for a little while.
Wa'ki:
Who can that be? What stirs in the bay?
Shi'te:
A fisherman's raft doomed to roam without mooring.
—————————————————————————————————————-
Zeami`s plays contain highly poetic passages, written to a strict syllabic count, and contain many allusions to and quotations from classical Japanese texts. To give a sense of the effect this has, we have drawn on references to British literature and culture in our version of Kinuta. We have kept to the original syllable count in the poetic passages.
KINUTA (extract)
PART 1
THE HUSBAND ENTERS
Here, I present myself as someone who is not a native of these parts, as someone who comes from Ashiya in Kyushu. It is in fact only circumstances of a legal nature that have obliged me to live in the capital. My anticipation was that my residence here would be brief – however, I am already in my third year, and am naturally concerned about the condition of those I have left behind. I have therefore decided to send back the maid, Evening Mist.
HE TURNS TOWARDS THE MAID
So, Evening Mist, out of concern for those left at home, I am requiring you to convey to them the following message. You are to say that I will definitely return by the end of the year.
THE MAID: If that's the case I'd better be off straight away.
Definitely by the end of the year, the master will appear".
THE HUSBAND LEAVES THE STAGE. THE MAID TRAVELS HOME
THE MAID:
Get set ready to
go down these travelling robes are
bound with strings of days
go down these travelling robes are
bound with strings of days
heap on missed evenings end at
inn after inn brief
dreams heaped on borrowed pillow
talk of the day in
day out break and end before
long arriving in
dust has turned to ashes in
Ashiya village
dust has turned to ashes in
Ashiya village.
PART 2
THE MAID IN FRONT OF THE ASHIYA HOUSE
Hello. Is anyone there? Can you say it's Evening Mist, back from the capital.
THE WOMAN APPEARS ON THE BRIDGE, WALKING SLOWLY AND SPEAKING TO
HERSELF
THE MAID SITS AT THE BACK OF THE STAGE
THE WOMAN:
Under the standing screened from
view to bye bye lovey dove`e
won`t last the night
falls sad thoughts of lovers parting
over sweetened
pillow talk of the devil take
your soul mate for life is hope
dashed by parting waves
between lovers lasting not
even in this world stay
together for ever do
not forget me not
to remember much more can
I stand the cries sound
from my heart on my sleeve leaves
me in tears overflowing
in drops of rain that rarely
clears in my heart oh.
PART 3
THE MAID: It's Evening Mist. Hello! Can someone announce me!
THE WOMAN: Did you say Evening Mist? You don't need to wait for an announcement. Come straight in.
THE MAID ENTERS THE STAGE AND THE WOMAN FOLLOWS HER
THE WOMAN SPEAKS ANGRILY
Well, Evening Mist. This is most unusual. And I must say I do feel bitter. So tell me, how is it that, even if he has completely changed, not a word of it has reached here from you? There's been nothing, not a call, not a whisper.
THE MAID: You're right. But I did want to come back as soon as I could. It`s just that serving the master left me no time. So, against my will, I had to stay in the capital right up
to the third year.
THE WOMAN: What are you saying? You were in the capital against your will?
SHE SPEAKS LONGINGLY
Think about it – in the blossoming capital, with its times of cheer and easy living. Still they say that sorrow is the way of the heart.
THE CHORUS:
Here in the back of beyond
belief shall wither
to the dregs of autumn leaves
no calling cards look
promising no
body is left to
lay my trust ends in dust thou
shalt return again.
Dick Witting turn three years in
autumn's but a dream
Dick Witting turn three years in
autumn's but a dream
if only sorrow would fade
away my body
stays awake not from
memories of the
past has changed no trace remains
but lies there are so
many lies
I can't imagine
all the people living in
pieces of mind his
words don't fall on what kind of
world would make one smile and
smile and be a
villain else I am
too foolish a heart is fooled
by a trustless thing.
Copyright 2002 Judy Kendall
Copyright 2002 Miyaji Eiko