As Mr. Wilson said, I have been in Japan.
I've been in Japan actually for most of the last eight years.
And I'll be going back to Japan next summer.
As a working man, I've worked in the woods,
in forestry and logging industries.
And I worked at sea in the engine room of ships.
When I lived in Japan, all of these three atmospheres,
the woods, the sea, and the Orient
are reflected in my poems.
Also perhaps another strong energy running through them
is my delight and study of-- my delight in
and study of classical Chinese poetry.
I'm going to start by reading a few translations I
did the winter before last.
These are translations of a Japanese poet
named Miyazawa Kenji.
His surname is Miyazawa.
Miyazawa died about 1933 at a relatively young age.
He was born and lived all his life
in the poverty-stricken and bitterly cold regions
of the northern hemisphere.
He was a high school chemistry and geology teacher.
He was also a farmer.
And he was a kind of agrarian anarchist.
He was also a Buddhist, a very learned Buddhist,
who read the Chinese and Sanskrit Buddhist literature
very carefully, as well as knowing Western history
and philosophy.
However in the Japanese literary world,
which is centered in Tokyo and has
been centered in Tokyo since Meiji,
he had no standing at all.
And he is still not very much read in Japan.
He is more known for his children's picture--
his children's fairy tales.
I'm going to read a few of these first.
This is called "Floating World Picture Spring in the Kitagami
Mountains."
As you all probably know, a floating world picture
generally in Japan refers to one of the genre wood
blocks of the Yoshiwara, the gambling and prostitution
sections.
So he's making essential argument that
Nobody at the edge of the fire pit,
snowboots and jute leggings, white birch flaming,
jetting out sour hot sap.
A child sings the kite songs, skinning badgers.
Housepillars gleaming with soot.
The sheer ceiling full of the blue smoke of breakfast.
Vault of a temple, one shaft of sunlight shooting down and all
is at the bottom in that central beam of light.
Spring at the chilly horse barn, glimmer of dry hay and snow.
Yearning for sunny hills, the horses stamp their hooves.
The willow sets out flowers.
Birds flow over hill after hill.
Horses hurry.
Hot-breatht Arab, glistening light-bodied thoroughbred,
transparent cuneiform wind and the stiff loony limbs
of the walnut.
A dog rustles the bamboo grass.
Heavy work horse flashing his tufty tail
like a monstrous lizard navigating in the sun.
Horses one by one coming, chewing
at the edge of the marl, climbing
along the misty run of snowmelt under a malachite sky.
Bright noisy market, being led to the stud inspection center.