Loose translations and interpretations of Ono no Komachi
If fields of autumn flowers
can shed their blossoms, shameless,
why can’t I also frolic here—
as fearless, wild and blameless?
Alas, the beauty of the flowers came to naught
as I watched the rain, lost in melancholy thought …
Am I to spend the night alone
atop this summit,
cold and lost?
Won’t you at least lend me
your robes of moss?
I nodded off thinking about you
only to have your appear in my dreams.
Had I known that I slept,
I’d have never awakened!
This selection previously appeared in Hub Pages (top ten love poems), Brief Poems, and Poem Today.
This abandoned mountain shack —
how many nights
has autumn sheltered here?
Once-colorful flowers faded,
while in my drab cell
life’s impulse also abated
as the long rains fell.
In this dismal world
the living decrease
as the dead increase…
oh, how much longer
must I bear this body of grief?
Did you appear
only because I was lost in thoughts of love
when I nodded off, day-dreaming of you?
(If I had known that you
couldn’t possibly be true
I’d have never awakened!)
Michael R. Burch‘s poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 17 languages, incorporated into three plays and four operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to classical, by 29 composers. He also edits The HyperTexts.
Sparks of Calliope 