"A dialogue on poverty"
On the night when the rain beats,
driven by the wind,
on the night when the snowflakes mingle
with the sleety rain,
I feel so helplessly cold.
I nibble a lump of salt,
sip the hot, oft-diluted dregs of sake;
and coughing, snuffling,
and stroking my scanty beard,
I say in my pride,
"There's none worthy, save I !"
But the shiver still with cold.
I pull up my hempen bedclothes,
wear what few sleeveless clothes I have,
but cold and bitter is the night !
As for those poorer than my self,
their parents must be cold and hungry.
Their wives and children beg and cry.
Then, how do you struggle through life ?
Wide as they call the heaven and erath,
for me they have shrunk quite small;
Bright though they call the sun and moon,
they never shine for me,
is it the same with all men,
or for me alone ?
By rare chance I was born a man,
and no meaner than my fellows,
but, wearing unwadded sleeveless clothes
in tatters, like weeds waving in the sea,
hanging from my shoulders,
and under the sunken roof,
within the leaning walls,
here I lie on straw,
spread on bare earth,
with my parents at my pillow,
my wife and children at my feet,
all huddled in grief and tears.
No fire sends up smoke
at the cooking place,
and in the cauldron
a spider spins its web.
With not a grain to cook,
we moan like the night thrush.
Then, "to cut", as the saying is,
"The ends of what is already too short,"
The village headman comes,
with rodin hand, to our sleeping place,
growing for his dues.
Must it be so helpless-
the way of this world ?
____
Nothing but pain and shame
in this world of men,
But I cannot fly away,
wanting the wings of a bird
Yamanoue Okura
