English translation of the prose
AI-assisted English translation of the prose; quoted poems remain in Japanese. The Japanese original remains authoritative.
Originally published: 17 July 2021.
A historical report from the Japanese website. Dates and public-health references reflect the original publication. Quoted poems and lyrics remain in Japanese.
Japan Romantic Poetry Forum: Summer, Fumizuki
Recorded 17 July 2021
Record and commentary: 河内裕二, Japan Romanticism Society
The day before our gathering, the Japan Meteorological Agency announced the end of the rainy season in Kanto-Koshin. This year it began about a week late but ended about three days early. The gathering day was pleasantly sunny, with more people at stations and on trains than last month. A word now often heard is 人流, jinryu. 人の流れ, the flow of people, was ordinary, but I first heard the compressed term during the pandemic. We often hear 電流, electrical current, 水流, water flow, and 物流, distribution, but I had never heard 人流. Of these, only 人流 is absent from the Japanese dictionaries I checked. 流 has many meanings besides flow: a category in 女流, spreading or circulating in 流行, and different senses again in 流派 and 流暢. The recent coinage 韓流 means Korean popular trends. Perhaps 人の流れ was used while 人流 was not because of this polysemy. During the pandemic, movement of people became so insistently emphasized that no meaning other than flow could be imagined from 人 plus 流, allowing 人流 suddenly to enter use. If so, COVID-19 affects language too.
The joint gathering began at 13:30 on 17 July at Miura Workers’ Civic Center. From the Miura Tanka Association came president 三宅尚道, 加藤由良子, 嘉山光枝, 桜井艶子, 嶋田弘子, and 玉榮良江; from the Japan Romanticism Society, 河内裕二. 清水和子 of Miura and our Society’s President Seishu Hamano also sent poems.
夫逝きて十年となり独り居も
「なれましたよと」と花を供へる 光枝
A work by 嘉山光枝. This month marks ten years since her husband died. Living alone brings anxiety and loneliness, but she now tries to regard it as a gift of free time. Even so, she says that a marriage is at its best while the couple can still quarrel. Everyone found her feelings clearly communicated in accessible language. Those who have lost partners will especially sympathize.
梅雨はしり仙台秋保（あきう）あざやかな
みどりと藤とあたたかき人と 由良子
The poet is 加藤由良子, writing from a May trip to Akiu Onsen. The bus takes about forty minutes from Sendai. As she admired new greenery along the way, wild wisteria added beautiful color. She was moved by the scenery and the warmth of local people. The refreshing poem seems to blow away the unsettled weather before the rains.
早朝のバスの人々会話なく
マスクを付けて皆前を見る 尚道
The poet is 三宅尚道. Everyone agreed that it was exactly so. An ordinary scene is depicted, but “wearing masks” leads readers during the pandemic to many thoughts. Where are passengers going so early when nonessential outings are discouraged—work, shopping, vaccination? Are they silent because they travel alone, to prevent infection, or because of pressure to conform? How long will this life continue? Miyake said the ending, everyone looking forward, also contains his wish to keep looking ahead despite society’s closed-in condition.
産土の宮に飛びかうつがい鳥
おいかけおいこしいずこへか消ゆ 弘子
According to the poet, 嶋田弘子, the actual creatures were butterflies rather than birds. Visiting a shrine to pray before her husband’s surgery, she saw two butterflies seemingly chasing one another, then disappearing after a while. They somehow overlapped with the couple’s life, prompting the poem. Everyone agreed that the image appeared vividly.
衣笠の寓居手放す日も近し
十歳（ととせ）の哀歌も幻と化す 成秋
A work by President Hamano, expressing his feelings on relinquishing a second residence in Kinugasa. Losing a house can feel like losing the memories lived there. The same is true of long-used possessions or keepsakes that recall the past. It feels as though part of life is missing, bringing sadness. The quiet tone of this fine poem leaves resonance in the heart. Hamano also composed a haiku:
薔薇一輪咲いて衣笠売りて去る 成秋
夫婦じアない夫婦以上のカップルの
声弾みおり朝の食卓 和子
The poet is 清水和子, describing breakfast at the residence where she lives. Some widowed residents moved in alone, met there, and became a couple. “Not married, but more than a married couple” was their own phrase in an interview for a television documentary. I had imagined older people’s residences as rather quiet and dark, but Shimizu’s depiction of bright, lively residents changed that image.
蓮華（はすはな）の薄紅白く移ろひて
待ちたるのみや散りて枯るるを 裕二
My own poem, written on seeing lotus flowers in a nearby park. They open early and close at night, but fall after only four days. Their beautiful red fades daily, becoming almost white on the fourth day. White flowers among the red ones will fall that afternoon. Though a law of nature, it is unbearably poignant.
夫忍び保安林保護呼びかけむ
故里の海永遠（とわ）の碧（あお）さを 艶子
The poet is 桜井艶子. Her husband often made donations, including support for a local high school’s protected forest to help younger generations. He hoped the forest would protect Miura’s sea and, beyond it, the world’s oceans. The school hopes to make forest protection a student club activity, but lacks operating funds. Sakurai now helps fundraise for maintaining it. Hearing this clarified the poem.
鶯の声がしきりに響く朝
まねして口笛吹きて返せり 良江
The poet is 玉榮良江. In nature-rich Miura, bush-warblers are often heard, and everyone understood the situation. Hearing their beautiful call, surely everyone has once wanted to imitate it by whistling. She actually did so, and the bird came close. Seeing one nearby for the first time, she found that it really was brown, as she had heard. The Iwate folk song “Nanbu Chaya-bushi” has the line 声はすれども姿は見えぬ藪に鶯声ばかり. In English it is the Japanese bush warbler; “bush warbler” means something like a bird singing in bushes. It is wary and rarely seen, so her ability to call it near by whistling is astonishing.
Hearing everyone’s accounts and learning the backgrounds of works helps us understand how thirty-one syllables express thoughts and feelings. Finding words and ordering that make theme, rhythm, and image work effectively is not easy. One altered word can transform a poem, yet noticing that word can be difficult. Opportunities to discuss with poets are precious, and continuing gatherings during the pandemic with meticulous care is admirable. This was another meaningful, fulfilling gathering.
Original wording, author credits, notes and source materials are preserved there.