Images from the Floating World
After a print by Haronobu
When her lover leaves
for a post in the north,
the courtesan should sing him
a song of parting, her voice
trembling to suggest grief.
She should write him a poem,
of delicate regret, paint
a watercolor of the hills
he's seen from her room.
Falling in love would spoil
the even temper of his days,
each emotion chosen as carefully
as stones for temple gardens. .
Her life, too, is ordered precisely,
as a tree is shapen in bonsai.
Looking at the miniature cypress
in its pebble-filled jar, she wonders
how the seedling might have grown
if left to itself. What surges
of growth would have bent it
in unseemly directions? What
would the wind have done?
Her song pleases her lover.
The birds on her kimono flutter
as she simulates a sob. The poem
tells, properly, of falling leaves,
inevitable snow. Only her painting
troubles him; there never are mists
in this part of the country. The set
of hills and pines seems familiar,
though . . . And now he sees the landscape
as she painted it, through tears.
Structure
33 lines · 4 stanzas