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Beautiful People Poetry Translations & More

RIP one of my favorite poets

Post author By Kay T. Ananda
Post date November 20, 2024
Sticky post

ShuntaroTanikawa … one of greatest poets from Japan passed away. He was 92. His Japanese language is so beautiful I never felt like translating his work – better learn Japanese and read and appreciate his poem in its original language I thought. But then, so many will miss out on his genius.

So I shall make an attempt out of love for his work.

宝だから

ほんとに大事なものはあるだけでいい

ほんとに大切なヒトはいるだけでいい

何でも誰でもあることいることで始まっている

朝　空がある　曇っていても晴れていても

昼　友達がいる　気が合っても合わなくても

夜　働く人がいる　君が夢を見ている間に

たまには人間やめてもいいんじゃないか

キノコになって森にいてみる

クラゲになって海にいてみる

コトバになって意味をやめてみる

声になってアンナプルナを呼んでみる

自分にもどってぼんやりしてみる

生きていれば毎日毎時が宝だから

目も耳も口も鼻も手足も忙しい

シニカルな大爆笑も宝石みたいに輝いて

谷川俊太郎

Treasure

Truly valuable things are good enough just existing

Truly precious person is good enough just being

Anything anybody starts from just being

Morning being a sky whether cloudy or sunny

Noon being friends whether we get along or not

Night someone’s working while you are dreaming

Once in a while maybe stop being a human

Be a mushroom and try being in a forest

Be a jellyfish and try being in an ocean

Be a word and quit having a definition

Be a voice and call out for Annapurna

Return to being yourself and why not space out

Every hour every day, each a treasure as long as we are alive

Being a live, our eyes, ears, mouth, nose, limbs are always busy

Alive, even a roaring laughter of cynicism

shines and sparkles like a treasured jewel
Shuntaro Tanikawa

It’s probably like reading Shakespeare translated into Japanese or Hafiz or Rumi into English… with a translator in love with Shakespeare or Hafiz, sure, it’s possible to do an adequate job but if you really really want to immerse yourself in that poetry … got to read them in the original language full of its quirks and charms. Read “Alone in Two Billion Light Years” (1952) in the original and feel the WONDER. First published when he was 21. That translation follows…

Poetry Translations & More Uncategorized

Two Trillion Light Years of Solitude

Post author By Kay T. Ananda
Post date July 4, 2026

二十億光年の孤独

人類は小さな球の上で

眠り起きそして働き

ときどき火星の火星人の仲間を欲しがったりする

火星人は小さな球の上で

何をしているか　僕は知らない

（或いは　ネリリし　キルルし　ハララしているか）

しかしときどき地球に仲間を欲しがったりする

それはまったくたしかなことだ

万有引力とは

ひき合う孤独の力である

宇宙はひずんでいる

それ故みんなは求めあう

宇宙はどんどん膨らんでゆく

それ故みんなは不安である

二十億光年の孤独に

僕は思わずくしゃみをした
谷川俊太郎

Two Trillion Light Years of Solitude

Mankind slumbers, awakens, labors, on this small sphere

Sometimes desiring to have Martians as friends

Martians on their small sphere, i do no know what they are doing

(if they are “neriri”ing or “kiriri”ing or might they be “harara”ing perhaps, whatever their onomatopoeia, i do not know what they do)

but they sometimes desires earthings as their buddies

This is for absolutely certain

Universal Gravitation is the power of attraction of the lonesome

The universe is distorted

Thus everyone desires one another

The universe steadily spands

Thus we are all left to feel anxious

reveling in the loneliness beyond two trillion light years away,

i let out a sneeze

– Shuntaro Tanikawa

translated by K. Tsuyama

How would you translate this poem? Thoughts like this keep me away from feeling the profound sadness … of losing my mother as she has taken off on a journey into another universe, or is it the same universe that feels like another dimension so so SO many light years away …she desired to depart and consequently, no longer lonely – she is with all those who has passed on before us. She is home. She is immortal. She is united with the immortals.

We are one in this ever expanding universe.

We find ways to endure, desiring one another even humans for martians and likewise…

Beautiful Places Uncategorized

books books books

Post author By Kay T. Ananda
Post date June 22, 2026

Great coffeetable books? Sometimes instead of scrolling the screen, we just want a comfortable couch, pop our feet up on a coffeetable and take one of these into our hands. Physically turning a page, I love that tactile sensation of a piece of paper we move with our own fingers, maybe rubbing the edges or sliding the the corner turning a page, unconscious and yet intentional. Making sure I didn’t skip a page is such a quiet nothing-to-it motion ho-hum act. Before the bound manuscripsts and print pages in ancient Japan, the educated unrolled the scroll of rice paper thus, the writing moved from top to bottom, from right to left. Probably it all began as a letter, a message from one educated to another educated – those who can read and write were select elites. Now most of us are literate – most of us are educated ? – or so we’d like to think and thank goodness – and reading is no longer exclusively by the elites or the holy. For the most part, I like to believe knowledges is now shared democratically, not monopolized by the few powerful.

Now, we embrace the screen; but there’s something about holding a physical book in your hands, having it on your lap … the sense of unfolding slowly taking place right in your hands. Don’t think it’s ever going to go out of style … but okay, maybe for the priviledged who can afford to give it the time and the most precious of all – that being – our attention.