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as red as can be
the crape myrtle is blooming
in our garden now
let me but look at you once
before I go off to camp
*
sunup and sundown
of the madder-glowing sky
in perfect calmness
who am I to tell at all
departure looms quite soon now
*
roar of waves scarcely
rained upon with white snowflakes
color swallowed down
by the great Genkai-nada
tonight rough handling for ships
*
outside the porthole
I see that the snow has stopped
and stars have come out
our ship unto China’s coast
ever nearer brings us all
*
adoze on my bunk
there came to my breast a flame
now drew near to me
the very faces of my
father and mother farewell
*
the heat of battle
amidst then things grow quiet
a moment of truth
the crowing of a rooster
I am utterly alone
*
into their mess kits
completely frozen over
they put their chopsticks
words failed every one of them
sitting beside the river
*
perched on the stone rim
the very large blackbirds are
a murder of crows
their raucous croakings ring out
in echoes and re-echoes
*
awhile I look at
the sight of a flock of sheep
descending the hill
right down to the Huanghe’s banks
it soothes me in the Shanxi
*
shoulder to shoulder
stepping wearied on
beside the dark stream
we are undone by fatigue
and trip again and again
*
ricocheting off
boulders in a rapid fire
enemy bullets
set off even as we fire
the guns we have to fire with
*
a Korean stove
sleeping on the floor beside
I keep warm tonight
tomorrow I go climbing
mountains in the east or west
*
we cook our dinner
in mudcolored water from
the Huanghe River
this is our glory of ease
we write home taciturnly
*
at our bivouac
a lonesome feeling rises
with the sound of grass
chewed by cavalry horses
in the light of just sunup
*
the other night I
was thinking right off a cliff
a horse had fallen
gazing just after sunup
at a large group of horses
*
nothing resembling
the shadow cast by a bird
above the Shanxi
landscape of desolation
hill upon hill and so forth
*
along the river
Hwang Ho stretching out full length
with a machine-gun
there’s nothing that can be compared
to my soldierly shadow
*
we were near the front
and chanced upon a woman
frightened and stuck there
for refuge inside a house
bestrewn all over with pots
*
marching at sundown
across the river Hwang Ho
you see the bottom
like the vein of a coal mine
under transparent water
*
with quiet menace
bullets pass us by swiftly
there I see one go
whizzing along to murder
some odd leaves of grass beyond
*
broken blades of grass
done in by small weapons fire
burned-up stands of shrubs
pale and weak the sun’s rays now
striking the green battlefield
*
flax-leaves drip and drip
tonight with the rain and wet
in the Shanxi range
at a village in its heart
in a village where you died
*
as I look upon
the Hwang Ho’s sunny surface
I recall you died
during the night just ended
if my memory is just
*
eleven A.M.
the sun shines here but it’s cold
soldiers carry wood
to make many grave-markers
for the men who die in war
*
limitlessly tired
as weary as they can be
in autumn’s first days
lying on the golden sands
side by side our soldiers sleep
*
no longer themselves
weary and exhausted men
our unit trods by
the rotting corpse of a horse
on the other riverbank
*
steeped in its own blood
half-alive a dog lies down
at a puddle yet
lapping water up a bit
it will have rest later on
*
asleep and trodden
exhausted soldiers scarce feel
some stray animal
stained with the battlefield’s mud
they have gone on now too far
*
we are surrounded
in the fortunes of the war
by our enemy
forward in the heavy fog
the enemy’s bugle sounds
*
in autumnal fog
nothing but bright red flashes
hostile hand grenades
calmly amidst all of this
my fate may be to perish
*
trenches all covered
the hour of mess this autumn
not come for two days
yet strong enough to pour down
upon our faces this light
*
sunup as always
breezes low on the mountains
now a comrade lies
alive but like to die soon
we gather round him and watch
*
in a Chinese girl’s
hand I delicately place
the folds of a crane
that you made yourself for me
and sent all the way from home
*
these rounds are for me
every single one of them
I suddenly sense
lying flat out on the ground
myopic and with glasses
*
in an armored car
pressing close upon us here
the enemy troops
and amidst all their shouting
a young soldier’s voice as well
*
the flame stands upright
of the longburning candle
stillness of midnight
when the cannon roar faroff
over fields covered with snow
*
I’m in a raincoat
made as it were out of straw
and the rain is cold
is this the last rain ever
I’ll feel here in this sad world?
*
in nothing but mud
we our small platoon take rest
a halt from marching
what there is of us as men
is not to be found with eyes
* * *
it’s unspeakable
how awfully painful war is
yet when I look back
upon the bleakness gone by
I cannot see for my tears
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