hypericum

Week one, entry two: we’re in Japan, you know…

I'm kind of steadily working now. There’s a huge snow storm this weekend, so I’m sitting by the window watching it while I translate. It hasn’t gotten too bad yet, so it’s really pleasant. In any case, I feel like a lot of the concerns I’m having in the early stages are very run-of-the-mill translator problems; they’re not unique to this text and I’ve encountered them a thousand times before (though they end up different each time). Every Japanese translator is always confronted with a shouganai or an otsukare that they have to figure out, and the “it can’t be helped” and “good work today” are such easy cop-outs that they’re a major pet peeve of mine. I turned one shikatanai into “it is what it is,” but I might come back to that later.( Read more... )

Desire

Kyomoto Taiga

I believed that our love would go on forever

Dusk seeps into the misty rain

This awful cruelty

Seems to block even the path you left behind

I’ve lost sight

of what I’m supposed to seek out in this world

Battered by impermanence

I know I can't go back anymore

But I still hope that one day I'll be sharing smiles with you again

So please, God, look back on me kindly

Because our sorrow has long since spilled over

Our shining promise still assaults the night

Morning comes, and this reality won’t change

I glare at it, I hate it

And the friction with the tomorrow it’s created

I won’t ask for anything else

So can I still believe that a miracle will come in the end?

I know I can't go back anymore

But I still hope that one day I'll be sharing smiles with you again

So please, God, look back on me kindly

Because our sorrow has long since spilled over

Notes