Statement of Translation Poetics
It is easy to become disheartened by translation’s imprecision—to worry that what you are producing does not do justice to the original. Multitudes of translation options spread out before you, yet each feels like a compromise, with nuances lost wherever others are retained. In these moments, I like to recall one of the first poems I ever translated:
紙屑も
ぼたん顔ぞよ
葉がくれに
Even scraps of paper
Have peony faces
Hidden in the leaves
(小林一茶 Kobayashi Issa 1819)
In this poem, haiku master Issa recalls his friend’s practical joke of hiding paper peonies amongst real peonies in the garden. I take comfort in this image of the flower garden and its reminder that poetry itself is a creative interpretation of experience—a paper peony. I like to think, then, of my own translations as newly crafted paper flowers sitting alongside these first poetic blooms and nature’s originals. Translations are creative renderings, distinct from both experience and its poetic reinterpretation. These differences and imperfections ultimately ensure translation remains an infinitely generative act—wherein a first flower can spawn countless variations.
Laura Marshall
The Beauty of the Sky
When we speak of the beauty of the sky, we generally mean wide-open skies or clear bright skies.
Since moving to the suburbs, I have learnt of another variety of the sky’s beauty. This is the loveliness of big city skies—the beauty one observes while standing on city pavements and looking up. Here the sky is not simply stretched out carefree. Cut up by tall buildings, advertising towers, antennas, and other entangled lines, there are triangular skies, warped hexagonal skies, and skies like forlorn scraps of cloth.
I feel a beauty missing from suburban vistas in the big city’s long, thin night skies, where the moon resembles a mari ball of woven thread that has fallen down the narrow gap between one roof and another.
August 1926
空の美 The Beauty of the Sky
空の美しさという場合、大抵広々とした空、晴やかな空などという。
郊外に住むようになってから、私は更に種類の異う空の美があることを知った。それは、大都会の上の空――大都会のペーヴメントに立って仰ぐ空の美しさだ。空はそこでは、ただのん気に広々としてはいない。高い建物、広告塔、アンテナ、其等の錯綜した線に切断され、三角の空、ゆがんだ六角の空、悲しい布の切端のような空がある。
屋根と屋根との狭いすき間からマリが落ちたような月の見える細長い夜の空、郊外の空にない美があるのを感じる。
〔一九二六年八月〕
Poem 1: 空の美 The Beauty of the Sky — Accessible on Aozora (repository for out-of-copyright Japanese works) at https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000311/files/3869_13043.html
Rain is Falling
A light rain is falling.
Sitting at my desk in the dim study, as is my custom, I am captivated by the indescribable beauty of the maple tree in front of me.
It is truly beautiful.
A gathering of exceptionally slender and delicately partitioned new leaves.
Each individual leaf is a soft reddish-brown, with hints of rain-dampened dull silver and the faintest purple drifting on the surface where they softly gather, as though bowed together.
The glimmer of small drops of water gradually collecting on thin leaf tips.
The fragrant shadow cast by layered leaves.
The tree’s silhouette—eerily round with an inexpressible softness and subtle gleam—is separated, as if shrouded, from the rainy sky and surrounding blackened lines.
I watch intently.
The rain descends upon this tree just as upon all others—gliding down, endlessly, suru suru, suru suru—and yet no part of the maple moves, not even imperceptibly. It stands with terrific stillness.
What incredible calm.
That the pliant maple makes not even a rustle—
This tree, which possesses such raw life-filled swelling that I imagine, were I to touch it with my finger, I would surely perceive the warm circulation of blood and elasticity of human skin—this tree leads me to feel as though it is really more an animal, or even a woman, than truly a plant.
It is too tender and too beautiful.
Too still.
Watching over this scene, seemingly so removed from its surrounds, I too began to feel as though my own heart was detached from the current state of the outside world that reverberated and trembled nearby. It was as though I was living in an extremely still world, where no rain fell, not even a drop.
While I was watching the tree—my heart overcome with unparalleled love—an uncontrollable emotion welled up from the depths of my soul. I came to feel as though my heart was filling and spreading from the tip of one leaf to the tip of another, slightly beyond.
The calm tree.
My quietly settled heart.
And yet, outside, rain is falling.
雨が降っている Rain is Falling
細い雨足で雨が降って居る。
薄暗い書斎の机の前にいつもの様に座って、私は先(（ママ）)ぐ目の前にある楓の何とも云えず美くしい姿を見とれて居る。
実に美くしい。
非常に肉の薄い細く分れた若葉の集り。
一つ一つの葉が皆薄小豆色をして居て、ホッサリと、たわむ様にかたまった表面には、雨に濡れた鈍銀色と淡い淡い紫が漂って居る。
細い葉先に漸々とまって居る小さい水玉の光り。
葉の重り重りの作って居る薫わしい影。
口に云えない程の柔かさと弱い輝を持った気味悪い程丸味のある一体の輪廓は、煙った様に、雨空と、周囲の黒ずんだ線から区切られて居る。
私はじいっと見て居る。
絶え間なくスルスル……スルスル……と落ちて来る雨は此の木の上にも他のどれもと同じ様に降り注いで居るのに、楓のどの部分も目に見えぬ微動さえ起さないで、恐ろしい静けさで立って居る。
何と云う落付いた事なのか。
此のしなやかなたよたよしい楓がそよりともしないと云うのは――
若し指を触れたら温かい血行を感じ人間の皮膚の通りな弾力を感じるだろうと思う程「なまなましたふくらみ」を持って居る木は、私に植物と云うより寧ろどうしても動物――而かも人間の女の様な気持を起させた。
余り柔かである、美くしすぎる。
余り静かにして居る。
その周囲からまるで離れたものの様にして居る姿を見守って居ると、自分の心までもすべて此の躰のすぐ近くで鳴り響き動き戦いて居る現在の有様からはなれて、雨も降らず雨垂も落ちない、非常に静かな世界に住んで居る様な心持になって来た。
私は此上ない愛情と打ちまかせた心とで木を見て居るうちに、押えられない感激が染々と心の奥から湧いて、彼の葉の末から彼方に一つ離れて居る一つ葉の端にまで、自分の心が拡がり籠って居る様になって来る。
彼の木は静かである。
私の心も静かに落付いて居る。
それだのに外には雨が降って居る。
Poem 2: 雨が降っている Rain is Falling — https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000311/files/7934_34406.html