You frogs! - Sakutarō Hagiwara

Inside the tangle of blue pampas grass and reeds
frogs seem to be bulging out whitely.
In the evening scene filled with rainfall
the gyo, gyo, gyo, gyo of crying frogs.
Striking and beating on the utterly dark ground,
this is a night violent with rain and wind.
On the chilled grasses and leaves too
frogs draw in a soft breath,
the gyo, gyo, gyo, gyo of crying frogs.
You frogs!
My being is not far away from you.
With a lamp in my hand I
was watching the surface of the dark garden,
was watching with fatigued mind leaves of grasses and trees sagging in rain.

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Sakutarō Hagiwara (1886-1942) Japan
Translated by Edith Marcombe Shioffert and Yūki Sawa
Source: Anthology of Modern Japanese Poetry Translated and compiled by Edith Marcombe Shiffert and Yūki Sawa, Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc, 1972