An Ode to the Summer Stars
So bright you are
glorious abundant stars shower, a downpour across the night sky
Antares, angry red, the brightest star of Scorpion
Forever the target to Saggitarious’ steady arrow
Indus, where might you be, as
the Swan flys gracefully over the flow of milky way
Deneb, a first star shining its tail on a long necked swan
Andromeda, still a cursed captive,
Corona Borealis, still awaiting its king to adorn the crown
star speckels, comets, namesless particles of dust, shine upon us
such is the boundless beauty
I no longer desire jewels on this earth as
I have seen your beauty in our galaxy and beyond
this universe
Noriko Ibaragi (translated by K. Tsuyama, summer 2024)
夏の星に
まばゆいばかり
豪華にばらまかれ
ふるほどに
星々
あれは蠍座の赤く怒る首星アンタレス
永久にそれを追わねばならない射手座の弓
印度人という名の星はどれだろう
天の川を悠々と飛ぶ白鳥
しっぽにデネブを光らせて
頚の長い大きなスワンよ！
アンドロメダはまだいましめを解かれぬままだし
冠座はかぶりてのないままに
誰かをじっと待っている
屑の星 粒の星 名のない星々
うつくしい者たちよ
わたくしが地上の宝石を欲しがらないのは
すでに
あなた達を視てしまったからなのだ
A poem by Ibaragi Noriko that I love.
If you love the piece, it’s easy for a multi-lingual mind…
Careful to transfer and preserve the nuance …One word at a time or
One sentence at a time or taking it as a whole organic creative breath…
Vastness that is this Universe, disbursed are these spakles of dust, our stars in the heavens. How do you translate? Let me show you the ways.
First let’s get this masterpiece into a Western style texts:
*** Alert !
So very strange !!! I had translated the above but it’s disappeared – wooosh from my page but fear not. I have a better version in my head – it’s funny one poem but different versions pops up.
June
Is there a beautiful village somewhere
where at the end of a day, dark foamy stout beer
resting the hoe against a wall, resting the basket
men and women raise their large jock
Is there a beautiful town somewhere
streets lined with edibile berries continue forever, smuding into a horizon of violet sunset skies
Gentle sounds of crowds of young people milling around, foam up the air to its very brim
Is there beautiful people and people power somewhere
Power of connection and delight in together living this now, this present moment, this same generation
sharing our rage that sharpen into furious power
Noriko Ibaragi
translated by K. Tsuyama, June 2024 in California:)
This poem by Noriko Ibaragi was first published June 21, 1956 on Asahi newspaper in Japan. She had just turned 30 that same month. I can sense her longings even though its generations ago in distant land and divergent culture … it’s a timeless. It’s timeless, that longing where we want to make a difference – we want to rebel – to be the changemaker for a better world while engulfed in anger. Rather than in gratitude for those who struggled to lead a path before us, we were furious. We were enraged. The poet was young. We were all young dreamers, whether drunk or sober.
That same longing is timeless.
And now I long to be back in that time…of earnest longings
to feel the strength of togetherness
when we felt that we had the power for a change.