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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 05:08

5 comments:

Ed Baker said...

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)

24 January 2011 at 07:17
TC said...

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."

24 January 2011 at 10:13
Ed Baker said...

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

24 January 2011 at 11:00
Anonymous said...

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).

24 January 2011 at 18:41
Ed Baker said...

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?

24 January 2011 at 18:47

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