Yasuhiro Yotsumoto
My wife and her mother, or
My mother-in-law, sit side by side
Watching children play
They say a few words to each other
And laugh, twisting themselves
Then all at once they are silent
Like wind-blown reeds
In that moment, an ancient mask
Covers the lingering smile
Like a barren field where a single seed of anger is buried
Like a lake, its water filled with unfathomable resignation
In their silence they share
Blood, snake, and fruit
Secrets like penalties
Inflicted only on those who delivered life into this world
A small child tries to mount a lamb and almost tumbles
Two women quickly hold out their hands
Such a scene, from two thousand years ago
Looms in a ray of the morning sun
In this morning’s grotto
Yasuhiro Yotsumoto
Inside the picture frame
Brueghel’s villagers are dancing
Men and women, locking arms
Every time they turn each other round and round
The mugs hanging from their belts clink and clink
Under the tree over there
A drunken man purses out his lips
The woman averts her face, laughing
Both their buttocks are bulky, ready to burst
We’ve never been like them
Dancing in joyous abandon
Coming together and moving apart
To a rhythm
Like surging waves
It’s not that we always
Got here sober, but
In the mattress of our bed
Two slight dents are carved side by side
When we are deeply asleep
Another pair, man and woman, begin to dance
Slowly
Smoldering blood from the tips of toes
Inuo Taguchi
I. Raphael’s Madonna
Raphael’s Madonna
Greets me from inside the circle
As if to tell me
To wake to the truth that
God, love, and the cosmos are
All circles
We all are
Given birth outside the circle
(No one is born inside the circle)
Our entire lives are devoted
To getting into the circle
III. Calling
The little child, innocent still
Calls out from inside the circle
Begging us to try
Transcending this world
Saying that wealth, power, fame
Everything outside the circle is
A sheer illusion
II. The Atelier inside the Circle
He did not paint it from outside the circle
The artist painted this picture
From inside the circle
Because in order to paint this picture
Perfect love and peace were
Necessary
More so than any other painting supplies
IV. Infinite Love
Why is it?
Madonna and Child and Johannes are
All locked
Inside the circle, yet
They don’t seem confined at all
Those who believe that
This world is the whole of the universe
Can’t even fathom that
But
The infinite world that transcends our life
Must be inside the circle
The world of love that transcends our life
Must extend into the depths of the circle
Yotsumoto’s original poems are from Tsuma no ugen (Starboard of My Wife) © 2006 Yotsumoto Yasuhiro
Taguchi’s original poems are from Haidon na asa (Haydn Morning) © 2021 Inuo Taguchi / Nanarokusha Publishing Co.
English translation from Japanese: © 2022 Takako Lento
Starboard of My Wife and Haydn Morning are scheduled to be published in Takako Lento’s translation in 2023 from Vagabond Press
Takako Lento translates poetry and prose from Japanese to English and vice versa, her most recent collections being Shuntaro Tanikawa’s Ordinary People (2021) and Shinkawa Kazue’s Selected Poems (2021), both with Vagabond Press. Her recent books of translation and critical essays include Tamura Ryuichi, on the Life and Work of a 20th Century Master (co-ed. Wayne Miller); The Art of Being Alone: Tanikawa Shuntaro, Poems 1952-2009; Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson (with W.S. Merwin); Pioneers of Modern Japanese Poetry, and Butterfly by Kashiwagi Mari. She lives in the United States.
Mr. Yotsumoto was born in Osaka in 1959. He is a poet, novelist, literary critic, founding editor of poetryinternational.org/Japan, multimedia producer of poetry reading events. He has published thirteen books of poetry, two novels, and two books of literary criticism. He has received many distinguished awards for his books of poetry. He has lived in Japan, Germany, and U.S.
Mr. Taguchi was born in 1967 in Kyoto. He attended Keio University’s School of Literature; graduated from Western Maryland College. His books of poems include General Moo (awarded the 31st Takami Jun Prize, 2001) and St Francis’ Birds (2008). “He explains why it took him twelve years to publish Haydn Morning: Emerson said, ‘Every wall is a door.’ For me, my illness turned out to be the door. It took more than ten years for it to open.” He lives in Tokyo.
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