Venice masks

Saturday, 22 April 2023

What about my songs - Yone Noguchi

The known-unknown-bottomed gossamer waves of the field
       arc coloured by the travelling shadows of the lonely,
       orphaned meadow lark;
At shadeless noon, sunful-eyed,—the crazy, one-inch butterfly
       (dethroned angel?) roams about, her embodied shadow
       on the secret-chattering hay-tops, in the sabre-light.
The Universe, too, has somewhere its shadow;—but what
        about my songs?
An there be no shadow, no echoing to the end,—my broken-
        throated flute will never again be made whole!

Yone Noguchi (1875 - 1947) Japan
Source: Selected Poems Of Yone Noguchi by Yone Noguchi, The Four Seas Company, 1921
From "Seen and unseen"

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