Monday, 24 January 2011

Buson: Fish Trap


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Fish trap by lfom5608 on flickr.com

Fish trap, Yangtze River: photo by Ifom5608, 2008 (via Now Public)



A bird calls;
The sound of the water darkens
Round the fish-trap.





File:Đặt đó.jpg

Vietnamese traditional fish trap: photo by Petr and Bara Ruzicka, 2006

A bird calls: Yosa Buson (1716-1783), translated by Reginald Horace Blyth
at

5 comments:

  1. Ed Baker24 January 2011 at 07:17

    this one brought a tear-to-my-eye
    ...both of them

    Imagine

    Grown men playing
    in stream
    w rocks
    for survival

    then fast forward to
    tons&tons&tons
    of
    Agent Orange / Napalm


    that plover is a Beauty
    also

    recalls to me a
    Bird I once knew

    ( a Shrike)

    ReplyDelete
  2. TC24 January 2011 at 10:13

    Hey Ed, this is a relief, we missed you -- still somewhat the worse for wear, here, medical consequences from last month's bad fall, this is no country for old men, so last night when somebody said, "Where's Ed?..."

    Well, I'm kind of superstitious lately.

    Here's what Blyth has to say about this one:

    "Bamboo rods bound together like a long net are stuck in lines along the shallow bed of the river, forming a kind of trap for fish in winter. In the evening, the trapper goes to see the place and shut up the narrow opening. At this moment some water-bird screeches, and at the sound the waters darken."

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ed Baker24 January 2011 at 11:00

    yeah

    been busy divesting myself


    so that in my Olde Age
    I can get me some of that Medicaide
    and a Funk and Waggnell so I can learn how to spell
    more better

    yeah and another yeah:
    Old age ain't for sissies!

    and
    THAT Blyth .. he had SOME spirit...

    get it!?! Blythe Spirit...

    hang in, man..... damn few of us Olde Phartz left...

    pee est

    what happened to those dog wounds? did the dawg after he bit you
    die?

    I mean

    people these daze care more about them Moron DAWGS
    than the people they (the dawgs) Bite!

    they fish similarily all over the world...

    cast their nets
    into the morning
    sun

    from a poem I wrote in 1968
    watching from the hill above The Bay of St. Paul
    fishermen ..... fishing...

    they'd give away the lobs'ers and octopies
    as

    too much trouble to prep
    besides they were mostly friday fish-eaters
    and dancers

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous24 January 2011 at 18:41

    I will carry this one around with me forever, I expect, including Ed's Agent Orange/Napalm comment and Bird I once knew (a Shrike).

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ed Baker24 January 2011 at 18:47

    Hey Curtis

    here's a scan of the original/entire SHRIKE:

    http://edbaker.maikosoft.com/shrike/1.html


    not great poetry OR great art ....

    but, what is?

    ReplyDelete