Around the same time that I read Takuboku Ishikawa (see last week’s post), I also delved into the work of Yosano Akiko – famed tanka poet and friend to Ishikawa.
I was so taken up by her work that I couldn’t help but respond to her in several tanka. Here’s one:
she speaks of the River of Stars
outside her window
and I cannot
but listen
on the other side
*
* Miya Masaoka *
In the selections below, Akiko refers to an instrument called a koto (see photo). I got to hear someone play one of these in the evenings while I waited for my train back when I worked in New York City. Like most stringed instruments, its power is derived from tension. When Akiko talks of destroying one with an ax, it is more than a metaphor – it is music.
*
from River of Stars – Yosano Akiko
While mother begins
chanting a deathbed sutra,
beside her, the
tiny feet of her infant,
oh so beautiful to see.
*
From her shoulder,
falling over the sutra,
a strand of unruly hair.
A lovely girl and a monk.
The burden of early spring.
*
The gods wish it so:
a life ends with a shatter –
with my great broadax
I demolish my koto.
Oh, listen to that sound!
*
And now you must ask
whether I’ve written new songs.
I am the mythic
koto with twenty-five strings,
but without a bridge for sound.
***
Happy sounding!
Jose
* photo found here.
The Influence 