Mutsuo Takahashi
Two poems translated from the Japanese by Hiroaki Sato
In Praise of the Olive
to my friend Dani Karavan
About the olive tree
what we know is little.
Its thousands upon thousands of leaves delicately rustle and sough
in the midday sunlight
but we don’t know
the dense darkness at the bottom of the earth its roots reach;
we don’t know
the accumulation of tens, hundreds of generations of the dead
which the innumerable beards extending from the roots embrace;
we don’t know
their memories, their sorrows and joys
which, piling up and melting, have become one;
we don’t know
the deep secret with which the pure substances that ooze out of it
are sucked in from the tips of the beards and, through the paths in the trunk,
pour out as light.
We simply go near the tree, sit down,
rest, read, talk with someone we’d agreed to meet,
and at times do some sketching.
On a day distant or near we’ll accept death coming to visit
and join the accumulation of the dead at the bottom of the earth.
We’ll be sucked up by the beards and turn ourselves into the light
that pours out of rustling leaves.
That’s all.
The Architect’s Nephew
Our architect’s nephew’s
uncle was an architect.
He was extremely short.
His architectures were all tall.
After building many tall architectures
he entered a mountain and began constructing a city:
a city that was as low as he was short:
an extremely low pantheon,
an extremely low library,
an extremely low theater.
With each halfway under construction, he took to bed.
He rose and closed the skylight.
Since then his short figure hasn’t been seen.
Instead, his sister’s son came.
Because his sister’s son was an architect’s nephew,
he began to mix the gravel, looking down.
The architect’s nephew doesn’t marry.
Does the architect’s unmarried nephew
have the architect’s nephew’s nephew?
Without a nephew, until when will the architect’s nephew
remain the architect’s nephew?
The short architect’s nephew is tall.
He walks through the low architectures,
stooping, making himself small.
Stooping, making himself small, he prepares a bed.
We wriggle into it
and dream of our architect’s nephew’s
uncle, who was an architect.
In the dream he becomes his nephew’s nephew.
Himself short, his tall nephew’s nephew,
like himself, who is short, is short.
Himself short, his tall nephew’s
short nephew continues to make
a city that is low for him, who is short,
and for the tall nephew of his, who is short.
This is the fate for him, his nephew,
and his nephew’s nephew.