FULL FATHOM FIVE

Old man, you surface seldom.
Then you come in with the tide’s coming
When seas wash cold, foam-

Capped: white hair, white beard, far-flung,
A dragnet, rising, falling, as waves
Crest and trough. Miles long

Extend the radial sheaves
Of your spread hair, in which wrinkling skeins
Knotted, caught, survives

The old myth of origins
Unimaginable. You float near
As kneeled ice-mountains

Of the north, to be steered clear
Of, not fathomed. All obscurity
Starts with a danger:

Your dangers are many. I
Cannot look much but your form suffers
Some strange injury

And seems to die: so vapors
Ravel to clearness on the dawn sea.
The muddy rumors

Of your burial move me
To half-believe: your reappearance
Proves rumors shallow,

For the archaic trenched lines
Of your grained face shed time in runnels:
Ages beat like rains

On the unbeaten channels
Of the ocean. Such sage…

SAMURAI SONG

When I had no roof
I made Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.

CANCIÓN DEL SAMURÁI

Cuando no tuve techo
hice de la Osadía mi tejado. Cuando no tuve cena

VRAI NOM

Je nommerai désert ce château que tu fus,
nuit cette voix, absence ton visage,
et quand tu tomberas dans la terre stérile
je nommerai néant l’éclair qui t’a porté.

Mourir est un pays que tu aimais. Je viens
mais éternellement par tes sombres chemins.
Je détruis ton désir, ta forme, ta mémoire,
je suis ton ennemi qui n’aura de pitié.

Je te nommerai guerre et je prendrai
sur toi les libertés de la guerre et j’aurai
dans mes mains ton visage obscur et traversé,
dans mon cœur ce pays qu’illumine l’orage.

NOMBRE VERDADERO

Yo nombraré desierto     el baluarte que fuiste,
diré noche a la voz     y ausencia a las facciones,
y cuando te derrumbes     sobre la tierra estéril
nombraré nulidad     el rayo que te lleva.

Morir es un lugar     que te agradaba. Vengo,
no obstante, eternamente    …