Ode to My Socks
Maru Mori brought me a pair of socks which she knitted herself with her sheepherder's hands, two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them as though into two cases knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin.
Violent socks, my feet were two fish made of wool, two long sharks sea-blue, shot through by one golden thread, two immense blackbirds, two cannons: my feet were honored in this way by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time my feet seemed to me unacceptable like two decrepit firemen, firemen unworthy of that woven fire, of those glowing socks.
Nevertheless
I resisted

the sharp temptation to save them somewhere as schoolboys keep fireflies, as learned men collect sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them into a golden cage and each day give them birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like exploreres in the jungle who hand over the very rare green deer to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on the magnificent socks and then my shoes.
The moral of my ode is this: beauty is twice beauty and what is good is doubly good when it is a matter of two socks made of wool in winter.
trans. Robert Bly
Ode to Salt
This salt in the saltcellar
I once saw in the salt mines.
I know you won't believe me, but it sings, salt sings, the skin

of the salt mines, sings with a mouth smothered by the earth.
I shivered in those solitudes when I heard the voice of the salt in the desert.
Near Antofagasta the nitrous pampa resounds: a broken voice, a mournful song.
In its caves the salt moans, mountain of buried light, translucent cathedral, crystal of the sea, oblivion of the waves.
And then on every table in the world, salt, we see your piquant powder sprinkling vital light upon our food.
Preserver of the ancient holds of ships, discoverer on the high seas, earliest sailor of the unknown, shifting byways of the foam.
Dust of the sea, in you the tongue receives a kiss from ocean night: taste imparts to every seasoned dish your ocean essence; the smallest miniature wave from the saltcellar

reveals to us more than domestic whitenesss; in it, we taste infinitude.
--trans. Margaret Sayers Peden
Ode to the Watermelon
The tree of intense summer, hard, is all blue sky, yellow sun, fatigue in drops, a sword above the highways, a scorched shoe in the cities: the brightness and the world weigh us down, hit us in the eyes with clouds of dust, with sudden golden blows, they torture our feet with tiny thorns, with hot stones, and the mouth suffers more than all the toes: the throat becomes thirsty, the teeth, the lips, the tongue: we want to drink waterfalls, the dark blue night, the South Pole, and then the coolest of all the planets crosses the sky, the round, magnificent, star-filled watermelon.
It's a fruit from the thirst-tree.
It's the green whale of the summer.
The dry universe all at once given dark stars by this firmament of coolness lets the swelling fruit

come down: its hemispheres open showing a flag green, white, red, that dissolves into wild rivers, sugar, delight!
Jewel box of water, phlegmatic queen of the fruitshops, warehouse of profundity, moon on earth!
You are pure, rubies fall apart in your abundance, and we want to bite into you, to bury our face in you, and our hair, and the soul!
When we're thirsty we glimpse you like a mine or a mountain of fantastic food, but among our longings and our teeth you change simply into cool light that slips in turn into spring water that touched us once singing.
And that is why you don't weigh us down in the siesta hour that's like an oven, you don't weigh us down, you just go by and your heart, some cold ember, turned itself into a single drop of water.
--trans. Robert Bly

Ode To The Lemon
From blossoms released by the moonlight, from an aroma of exasperated love, steeped in fragrance, yellowness drifted from the lemon tree, and from its plantarium lemons descended to the earth.
Tender yield!
The coasts, the markets glowed with light, with unrefined gold; we opened two halves of a miracle, congealed acid trickled from the hemispheres of a star, the most intense liqueur of nature, unique, vivid, concentrated, born of the cool, fresh lemon, of its fragrant house, its acid, secret symmetry.
Knives sliced a small cathedral in the lemon, the concealed apse, opened, revealed acid stained glass, drops oozed topaz, altars, cool architecture.
So, when you hold the hemisphere of a cut lemon above your plate, you spill a universe of gold, a yellow goblet of miracles, a fragrant nipple

of the earth's breast, a ray of light that was made fruit, the minute fire of a planet.
America, I Do Not Call Your Name without Hope
America, I do not call your name without hope.
When I hold the sword against the heart, when I live with the faulty roof in the soul, when one of your new days pierces me coming through the windows,
I am and I stand in the light that produces me,
I live in the darkness which makes me what I am,
I sleep and awake in your fundamental sunrise: as mild as the grapes, and as terrible, carrier of sugar and the whip, soaked in the sperm of your species, nursed on the blood of your inheritance.
trans. Robert Bly
Body of a Woman
Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs, you like a world, lying in surrentder.
My rough peasant's body digs in you and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.
I was alone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me, and night swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon, like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.
But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.
Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!
Oh the roses of the publis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!
Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.
trans. W.S. Merwin
Walking Around
It so happens I'm tired of just being a man.
I go to a movie, drop in at the tailor's--it so happens--

feeling wizened and numbed, like a big, wooly swan, awash on an ocean of clinkers and causes.
A whiff from a barbershop does it; I yell bloody murder.
All I ask is a little vacation from things: from boulders and woolens, from gardens, institutional projects, merchandise, eyeglasses, elevators--I'd rather not look at them.
It so happens I'm fed up--with my feet and my fingernails and my hair and my shadow.
Being a man leaves me cold: that's how it is.
Still—it would be lovely to wave a cut lily and panic a notary, or finish a nun with a left to the ear.
It would be nice just to walk down the street with a green switchblade handy, whooping it up till I die of the shivers.
I won't live like this—like a root in a shadow, wide-open and wondering, teeth chattering sleepily, going down to the dripping entrails of the universe absorbing things, talking things in, eating three squares a day.
I've had all I'll take from catastrophe.
I won't have it this way, muddling through like a root or a grave, all alone underground, in a morgue of cadavers, cold as a stiff, dying of misery.
That's why Monday flares up like an oil-slick, when it sees me up close, with the face of a jailbird, or squeaks like a broken-down wheel as it goes, stepping hot-blooded into the night.
Something shoves me toward certain damp houses, into certain dark corners, into hospitals, with bones flying out of the windows; into shoe stores and shoemakers smelling of vinegar, streets frightful as fissures laid open.
There, trussed to the doors of the houses I loathe are the sulphurous birds, in a horror of tripes, dental plates lost in a coffeepot, mirrors that must surely have wept with the nightmare and shame of it all; and everywhere, poisons, umbrellas, and belly buttons.
I stroll unabashed, in my eyes and my shoes and my rage and oblivion.
I go on, crossing offices, retail orthopedics, courtyards with laundry hung out on a wire; the blouses and towels and the drawers newly washed, slowly dribbling a slovenly tear.

trans. Ben Belitt
Walking Around (alternate translation)
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie houses dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.
The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.
The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens, no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.
It so happens I am sick of my feet and my nails and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
Still it would be marvelous to terrify a law clerk with a cut lilly, or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great to go through the streets with a green knife letting out yells until I died of the cold.
I don't want to go on being a root in the dark, insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep, going on down, into the moist guts of the earth, taking in and thinking, eating every day.
I don't want so much misery.
I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb, alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses, half frozen, dying of grief.
That's why Monday, when it sees me coming with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline, and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel, and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.
And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses, into hospitals where the bones fly out the window, into shoeshops that smell like vinegar, and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.
There are sulpher-colored birds, and hideous intestines hanging over the doors of houses that I hate, and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,

there are mirrors that ought to have wept from shame and terror, there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.
I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes, my rage, forgetting everything,
I walk by, going through the office buildings and orthopedic shops, and courtyards with washing hanging from the line: underwear, towels and shirts from which slow dirty tears are falling.
trans. Robert Bly
Walking Around (yet another translation)
It happens that I am tired of being a man.
It happens that I go into the tailor's shops and the movies all shrivelled up, impenetrable, like a felt swan navigating on a water of origin and ash.
The smell of barber shops makes me sob out loud.
I want nothing but the repose either of stone or of wool.
I want to see no more establishments, no more gardens, nor merchandise, nor glasses, nor elevators.
It happens that I am tired of my feet and my nails and my hair and my shadow.
It happens that I am tired of being a man.
Just the same it would be delicious to scare a notary with a cut lily or knock a nun stone dead with one blow of an ear.
It would be beautiful to go through the streets with a green knife shouting until I died of cold.
I do not want to go on being a root in the dark, hesitating, stretched out, shivering with dreams, downwards, in the wet tripe of the earth, soaking it up and thinking, eating every day.
I do not want to be the inheritor of so many misfortunes.
I do not want to continue as a root and as a tomb, as a solitary tunnel, as a cellar full of corpses, stiff with cold, dying with pain.
For this reason Monday burns like oil at the sight of me arriving with my jail-face, and it howls in passing like a wounded wheel, and its footsteps towards nightfall are filled with hot blood.

And it shoves me along to certain corners, to certain damp houses, to hospitals where the bones come out of the windows, to certain cobbler's shops smelling of vinegar, to streets horrendous as crevices.
There are birds the colour of sulphur, and horrible intestines hanging from the doors of the houses which I hate, there are forgotten sets of teeth in a coffee-pot, there are mirrors which should have wept with shame and horror, there are umbrellas all over the place, and poisons, and navels.
I stride along with calm, with eyes, with shoes, with fury, with forgetfuless,
I pass, I cross offices and stores full of orthopedic appliances, and courtyards hung with clothes on wires, underpants, towels and shirts which weep slow dirty tears.
trans. W.S. Merwin
And How Long?
How much does a man live, after all?
Does he live a thousand days, or one only?
For a week, or for several centuries?
How long does a man spend dying?
What does it mean to say 'forever'?
Lost in this preoccupation,
I set myself to clear things up.
I sought out knowledgable priests,
I waited for them after their rituals,
I watched them when they went their ways to visit God and the Devil.
They wearied of my questions.
They on their part knew very little.
They were no more than administrators.
Medical men received me in between consultations, a scalpel in each hand, saturated in aureomycin, busier each day.
As far as I could tell from their talk, the problem was as follows:

it was not so much the death of a microbe-they went down by the ton, but the few which survived showed signs of perversity.
They left me so startled that I sought out the grave-diggers.
I went to the rivers where they burn enormous painted corpses, tiny bony bodies, emperors with an aura of terrible curses, women snuffed out at a stroke by a wave of cholera.
There were whole beaches of dead and ashy specialists.
When I got the chance
I asked them a slew of questions.
They offered to burn me.
It was all they knew.
In my own country the dead answered me, between drinks:
'Get yourself a good woman and give up this nonsense.'
I never saw people so happy.
Raising their glasses they sang toasting health and death.
They were huge fornicators.
I returned home, much older after crossing the world.
Now I ask questions of nobody,
But I know less every day.
Tonight I Can Write
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her. trans. Merwin