Tangled Hair/Gleanings
Gleanings
The volcano of Asama!
Multitudinous white naked children
Ascend to heaven
Amidst the smoke.
The volcano of Asama!
The stillness of the violent thing!
The whirl of the platinum flame
Moves not even slightly.
The flames of Asama
Neither approach nor recede.
The path of the determined soul
Is single and straight.
On a day when the pond of Kumoba
Is shrouded in the rain,
The white birch trees
Seem as pure as nuns.
How chilly the frozen lake
Of Haruna looks!
Yet it is not
The floor of a monastery.
The autumn wind is the autumn wind;
The moon is the moon;
But the sound of the waves
At the Naruto Straits
Is more than the sound of waves.
Like white satin
Dipped in a dye of blue,
So disappear the whitecaps
Of the Naruto Straits.
The moon shines white upon the sea,
And the hills of Awaji squat low
Along the Naruto Straits at midnight.
The silver threads of the moon
And the blue threads of the waves
Are entwined in embroidery
From the cape of Oge to the island of Awaji.
Shall I call it a light
Or a half light—
The autumnal glow
Across the ocean expanse?
Pathetic is the lone light
That in the rise and fall
Of the ocean waves
Now appears and now disappears.