Classic Poem

The Corpse of a Cat

to a woman I call Ula

In a spongelike landscape,
and moist, swollen with dampness.
Nowhere are humans and beasts visible,
and an oddly sad-looking waterwheel seems to be weeping.
Then too, from under a blurring willow,
a gentle person you are waiting for is visible, I say
Her body wrapped in a light shawl,
dragging a beauteous, gaseous costume,
and roaming quietly like a spirit.
Ah Ula, lonely woman!
" You, you're always late, aren't you? "
We have no past, have no future,
then too, we've disappeared from actual things.
Ula!
In this landscape that looks peculiar,
why don't you bury the corpse of the muddy cat?EnglishHagiwara Sakutaro