Translating Issa #32
Today the sun broke cleanly from three days of clouds. The
14- and 15-year-olds I teach spent the morning writing poems. Most
were lists of skies: red sky, broad sky, night sky, star sky, glow, black
sky, morning sky, all over the world the same sky.
Another teacher wondered how I had stayed dry. I said I
changed.
Just now leaving
the head of my long shadow
is spring’s first butterfly. 