Leith Morton has written 6 books of poetry, most recently Tokyo: A Poem in Four Chapters (2006). He is also the author of six volumes of translated Japanese poetry, including Shuntaro Tanikawa: Selected Poems (2006). His other books include Modern Japanese Culture: The Insider View (2003); Modernism in Practice: An Introduction to Postwar Japanese Poetry (2004); Yosano Akiko no ‘Midaregami’ o Eigo de Ajiwau (2007); and The Alien Within: Representations of the Exotic in Twentieth Century Japanese Literature (2009).

 

となりにいるはずの妻がいない

はた機を織っているのだな

寝返りを打ちながらそう思う

階下の食卓か屋根裏部屋の長椅子で

風呂上がりの頭にタオルを巻きつけたバスローブ姿で

 

その夜織っていたのは何だったのだろう

遠く離れた親戚への手書きの便り

学校で使う衣装や小道具

匂いがしないから料理の下拵えではないみたいだ

 

糸はありふれたものばかり

だがそこに浮かび上がってくるのは

異教徒の街の、ねじ捩くれた尖塔からの眺めのような

見慣れない細密模様

 

羊皮と糞尿

些細な取引をめぐる

のっぴきならぬ烈しい応酬

朝夕の空にひびきわたるきりのない嘆きのような

戒律

 

覗きこむならば

忽ちにして滅びるだろうもうひとつの国へ

人は自分でも気づかぬままに

償いの旅をはじめる

 

重く引き摺るような妻の足音が階下からきこえる

Yonaka ni me o samasu (Waking Up in the Middle of the Night)

 

My wife who should be beside me is not.

Doing some weaving, I suppose

These thoughts come to me tossing and turning in bed

On the dinner table downstairs or on the sofa in the attic

Just out of the bath, in a bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a towel

 

What was she weaving on that particular evening?

Composing by hand a letter to her distant relatives

Making costumes and props for school

Since there’s no smell, it seems she’s not preparing the ingredients of a meal

 

Thread is totally commonplace

But what emerges there

Is a strange elaborate pattern

Like the view from a crooked steeple in a pagan city

 

Sheepskin and excrement mixed with urine

An exchange violent and intense

About a trivial transaction

Commandments like an unending lamentation echo across the sky at dawn and dusk

 

If you peer into it

All will soon end; in another country

Without realizing it

People begin journeys of atonement

 

From downstairs I hear my wife’s lumbering footsteps

 

 

 

 

 

妻は言葉では書かれていないので

長編小説を朝までかかって

読みあげるようには

ゆかない

 

気になる詩の数行を

繰り返しなんども読み返すのとも

（似ているかもしれないが）違うだろう

 

昨日車を運転していたら

騒音の隙間から

一瞬鳥の羽ばたく音が聴こえて

あ、とぼくは思った

 

その〈あ〉も一瞬だが

読み解こうとすれば永遠がいる

まして妻は寝ても覚めてもぼくの目の前

 

ひとを読もうだなんて不遜だろうか

表情でも仕草でもなく

妻そのひとを

一生一緒に生きてゆくだけでは満足できずに

 

食卓越しに話しかけてくる妻

無言で寝返りをうつ妻

そこにいるのは

見えない妻に仕える忠実な侍女たちのよう

 

一息ごとに綴られる文章に

現実が句読点を打つ

吹き込んできた風に妻が捲(めく)られている

 

字面ではなく文体を捉えたい

妻からも自分からも遠く離れた静かな場所で

大気に雪の気配を嗅ぐ小枝のように

妻を読みたい

 

Tsuma o yomu (Reading My Wife)

 

My wife is not composed of words so

I can’t

Read her

Like a long novel until dawn

 

Repeating lines from a poem I like

Reading them over and over again

(the two acts may well resemble each other) won’t work

 

When I was driving my car yesterday

In a gap in the noise

I heard a moment of birdwing beating

Ah, I thought

That ‘ah’ is also a moment and

If I try to analyze it, there lies eternity

After all whether asleep or awake my wife is right in front of me

 

Is it presumptuous to try to read someone?

Not an expression or gesture

I can’t be satisfied just with living my whole life through

With my wife

 

My wife who talks to me across the dinner table

Who tosses and turns in bed silently

As if she is the sum total of

All the maids faithfully serving the wife I cannot see

 

On text composed breath by breath

Reality writes annotations

Blown by the wind the pages of my wife turn

 

Not the shape of the letters: I want to capture the style

In a quiet place far removed from both my wife and myself

Like a twig scenting traces of snow in the air

I want to read my wife

 

 

 

寝返りをうって眼を覚ますと

目の前に妻が横たわって

涙を流していた

 

ぼくの会ったことのない彼女の顔見知りが

突然亡くなったのだ

その日の夕方食事をはさんで

妻から聞いた　ぼくは

驚いてみたり訳知り顔に頷いたりもしたが

 

妻は今ただひとり自分だけのやり方で

そのひとを悼んでいる

黙ったまま境界まで歩いてゆき

途轍(とてつ)もなく巨きなものに手を触れているのがわかる

 

だれもそれに加わることはできない

深い淵の

はるか手前で

もう一度ぼくは寝返りをうつ

 

Negaeri o utte (Tossing and Turning)

 

Turning over in bed, I open my eyes and

I see my wife stretched out in front of me

Weeping

 

An acquaintance of hers I have never met

Suddenly died

That evening during dinner

She told me.  I

Showed my surprise and nodded my I-know-how-it-is look

 

By herself and in her own way my wife

Is mourning that person

I realize that she is walking towards a border not uttering a word

Her hands touching something absurdly massive

 

No one can be with her

Here, far removed from

Her deep hole

In bed I turn away from her

 

 

 

時とともに

やわらかになってゆく

そしてわずかに

ひんやりと

 

頬

首筋

肩から肘へ

あんなに好きだった

 

唇が

少しずつ

剥がれてゆく

 

ほぐされて　鞣されて

枝に吊るされて

揺れる

 

乳房と塊

 

一晩中ずっと聞こえていた川の音が

明け方ふいに昂まる

曳かれてゆく生贄(いけにえ)が　血の

匂いに気づいて

 

立ち止まり

岩のように　固く

 

おおきくなる

ほら、

さわって

Karada (Body)

 

As time passes

It becomes increasingly softer

And then slightly

Cold

 

Cheeks

Neck

From shoulder to elbow

The lips

I loved so much

Bit by bit

Begin to peel

 

 

Softened   tanned

Hanging on a branch

Swaying

 

Breasts and the soul

 

The noise of the river I’ve been hearing all night

At dawn suddenly swells

Hauled up, the sacrifice becomes

Aware of the smell of blood

Frozen to the spot

Hard   like a rock

 

Grows big

See:

Go ahead and touch it