Autumn Leaves
Tuesday, 27. October 2009, 23:40:01
On the 20th of this month I got up and went downstairs and there were leaves across the kitchen floor, as if blown in on a gust of wind. They are still there. Autumn always comforts me.
The same day, blowing in on another wind, there came two different leaves in the form of packages for me. One of them was a volume called Japanese Love Poems, edited by Jean Bennett and illustrated by Scott Cumming. Poetry is notoriously difficult to translate, especially between two such dissimilar languages as Japanese and English, but I find the translations in this volume to be very fresh and evocative.
The poems date as far back as the third century (possibly further), which does tend to make me wonder for how long, exactly, humans have had the same emotions? Here's an undated Japanese lyric from the selection:
Reminds me of another old lyric:
Of course, these are things I know nothing about, but I am anthropologically and aesthetically interested.
It's a very beautiful book, in content and as an object, the illustrations forming a significant part of its charm.
The book was not coming to me for the first time, actually. I had sent it (after my initial purchase) to the illustrious illustrator, and he very kindly wrote an inscription and sent it back.
The second package I received that day was a Japanese purse - the purse equivalent of this:
Today I received another package in the post. It was this book:
I've read and appreciated Alan Watts before, so am looking forward to reading this. I am actually, very, very slowly, working on my own translation of the Tao Te Ching and this looks as if it will help me.
By the way, talking of the "flowing of water", here's a little extract from Alan Watts' book:
The same day, blowing in on another wind, there came two different leaves in the form of packages for me. One of them was a volume called Japanese Love Poems, edited by Jean Bennett and illustrated by Scott Cumming. Poetry is notoriously difficult to translate, especially between two such dissimilar languages as Japanese and English, but I find the translations in this volume to be very fresh and evocative.
The poems date as far back as the third century (possibly further), which does tend to make me wonder for how long, exactly, humans have had the same emotions? Here's an undated Japanese lyric from the selection:
Two things cannot alter,
Since Time was, nor to-day:
The flowing of water;
And Love's strange, sweet way.
Reminds me of another old lyric:
Of course, these are things I know nothing about, but I am anthropologically and aesthetically interested.
It's a very beautiful book, in content and as an object, the illustrations forming a significant part of its charm.
The book was not coming to me for the first time, actually. I had sent it (after my initial purchase) to the illustrious illustrator, and he very kindly wrote an inscription and sent it back.
The second package I received that day was a Japanese purse - the purse equivalent of this:
Today I received another package in the post. It was this book:
I've read and appreciated Alan Watts before, so am looking forward to reading this. I am actually, very, very slowly, working on my own translation of the Tao Te Ching and this looks as if it will help me.
By the way, talking of the "flowing of water", here's a little extract from Alan Watts' book:
... Tao is the flowing course of nature and the universe; li is its principle of order which, following Needham, we can best translate as "organic pattern"; and water is its eloquent metaphor.
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