First breeze of autumn
Little round dove, unwinding
In a warm bird bath
++
Stuffed to the gills
From feeding at the finch feeder
Why not take a load off?
Your little round body
Sitting in a warm bird bath
++
Are your feet cold?
–Ah, the promise of autumn–
In the sound of the wind.
++
Blazing hot sunshine
Little round dove in our bird bath
Listening to the wind
–Out my kitchen window (August 18)
After Issa
秋の風
鳩心に
秋思ふやう
The autumn wind—
A little round dove thinking
Of the season ahead
** Note One: Translating the Chieko Poems, I struggled with the way the poet describes glimpsing his beloved Chieko in the bath:
あなたの冷たい手足 あなたの重たく まろいからだ
I was never happy with “Your heavy, round body…” in English, especially as Chieko was thin as a rail. But seeing the little dove in the bird bath, I suddenly remembered how Kotaro felt seeing Chieko… that little round body in the bath!
Note Two:
On a tour of underground Orvieto, walking around the caves dug beneath the town- thousands of caves dug in the soft rock, our guide referred to the pigeon cotes as “the dove courts.” I loved that. And realized that maybe in Italian–like the Japanese– the word for pigeons and the word for doves is the same?
“Suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a pigeon…”
It just doesn’t sound right, does it?
But the Greek word used here is peristera, and while your Biblical dictionaries and lexicons will emphasize dove, they concede that it can also mean pigeon (as in Luke 2:24).
Dewdrop World 