English translation of the prose
AI-assisted English translation of the prose; quoted poems remain in Japanese. The Japanese original remains authoritative.
Originally published: 21 January 2024.
A historical report from the Japanese website. The heading gives 20 January 2024, while the meeting paragraph states 21 October at 01:30. This discrepancy is retained rather than silently resolved. Quoted poems remain in Japanese.
Japan Romantic Poetry Forum: Winter, Mutsuki
20 January 2024
Record and commentary: 河内裕二, Japan Romanticism Society
A major earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula on the evening of New Year’s Day. I was visiting my family home in Aichi Prefecture, where shaking of around intensity four was also recorded. Reports suggested enormous damage, and the festive New Year mood vanished instantly. The following day, a Japan Coast Guard aircraft heading to assist the earthquake response collided with a Japan Airlines passenger plane at Haneda Airport. The images of flames were shocking. I began to worry about what kind of year this would be.
The source records the gathering at Deguchiso as beginning at 01:30 on 21 October. Participants were 三宅尚道, president of the Miura Tanka Association, 加藤由良子, 嘉山光枝, 嶋田弘子, 羽床員子, Seishu Hamano, president of the Japan Romanticism Society, and 河内裕二. 清水和子 of the Miura Tanka Association also sent poems.
「三浦半島最高！」と声を残して走りゆく
若きサイクリスト朝焼けの中 由良子
The poet is 加藤由良子. On a day with a breathtakingly beautiful dawn sky, a cyclist visiting Miura apparently cried out at its beauty. Beautiful sunsets are familiar, but such a dawn sky is unusual; perhaps the early bird really does gain a reward. She was delighted that someone called the place where she lives “the best,” and made it into a poem. Although it greatly exceeds thirty-one syllables, it is so well unified that one scarcely notices—an impressive achievement.
畑道に初日待つ人並び立つ
空気澄みしか吐く息白し 光枝
The poet is 嘉山光枝. Watching the first sunrise from the same place is an annual New Year’s Day custom in the Kayama household. This year, with no clouds, they saw it beautifully. Apparently the sea is visible from the field; the line about people standing in a row suggests that others besides the family came. We sense the breathing of people waiting in the cold for the sun to appear.
今言っておかねばならぬと気がせきて
娘との通話電池切ればかり 和子
A work by 清水和子. Is it her daughter’s phone that runs out of battery? Does the phone, an inanimate object, physically interrupt the conversation regardless of the poet’s urgency to say something now? Or does the daughter answer and then hang up because her battery is low? Once might be bearable, but ばかり, suggesting that it happens repeatedly, is deeply poignant.
気がつけばひねくれ根性大きなり
赤心願って産土参り 弘子
The poet is 嶋田弘子, writing about herself. It is not quite “knowing that one does not know,” but being able to admit one’s own perversity surely demonstrates openness. Recently she has decided to live the rest of her life as she pleases. Yet somewhere she also longs to regain a heart like the newborn child she once was; that wavering feeling has actually taken her to worship at her birth-land shrine. The poem begins “on noticing,” but most people fail to notice things about themselves. Observing oneself objectively is not easy. I am moved by her effort to face herself through poetry too.
能登半島地震のありてラジオより
安否不明者の名前を聞けり 尚道
A poem by 三宅尚道 about the earthquake centered on the Noto Peninsula on New Year’s Day. I too sought information, but used television and the internet. Perhaps it becomes poetry precisely because he listens on the radio: he attends to a voice speaking to him. Television and the internet center on images and photographs rather than words. Tanka and radio alike communicate through the power of words.
座右の銘「無財の七施」とせし亡姑（はは）は
四国の先祖の遺伝子を継ぐ 員子
The poet is 羽床員子. The two terms 無財の七施, the seven forms of giving without material wealth, and Shikoku tell us that she is referring to hospitality toward Shikoku pilgrims. Her late mother-in-law often spoke about these seven gifts. She taught, for example, that one need not spend money: a smiling disposition can make everyone happy, and this is the gift of a kind face. The poem remembers her knowledgeable mother-in-law. Apparently their relationship was excellent, without the proverbial conflict between wife and mother-in-law, and that comes across clearly.
荒玉（あらたま）に地割れ幾人（いくたり）黄泉の里
下天の嗚咽画竜を揺るがす
A poem by President Seishu Hamano, composed in response to the New Year’s Day earthquake. 荒玉 means an unpolished jewel: while one considers how to polish the new year, an earthquake occurs and many people die. 画竜 evokes the final touch of adding pupils to a painted dragon’s eyes. The poet was about to paint his own dragon, but the earthquake made that impossible to contemplate. 荒玉 recalls the beginning of a new year, and the dragon is this year’s zodiac animal, thus representing the year itself. It is a remarkably accomplished poem.
幼き日植えた千両一株が
今や庭中朱く染めたり 裕二
My own poem. Whenever I visit my family home at New Year, the senryo shrubs in the garden bear red berries. On the morning after the earthquake, I looked outside and saw their red spreading across the garden. A single plant set there in my childhood had multiplied over many years: birds eat the berries and scatter the seeds. Red-berried senryo is considered auspicious and used for New Year decorations. One plant had increased so greatly. I wrote with the hope that happiness might likewise multiply for those suffering from the earthquake.
After the poetry gathering, the New Year party we had been looking forward to began. We chatted over delicious food. Like the question raised by Professor Hamano’s tanka, I had attended wondering what kind of year lay ahead. Seeing everyone’s smiles and hearing their enjoyable conversation made me feel sure that it would be a good year. The importance of the gift of a kind face, mentioned by 羽床, is exactly as she said. It is commonplace to say so, but each disaster makes us recognize anew how precious ordinary daily life is.
Original wording, author credits, notes and source materials are preserved there.