Ikkyu

My Hovel
Bu Ikkyu
Translated by John Stevens

The world before my eyes is wan and wasted, just like me.
The earth is decrepit, the sky stormy, all the grass withered.
No spring breeze even at this late date.
Just winter clouds swallowing up my tiny reed hut.

I remember when I was nine years old. I look in the mirror and see some old lady staring back at me, wan and wasted, hair gray. Who in the hell is that? My skin sags. I could lose weight more but can't lose the years. The woman is wearing glasses. How did that happen? I never thought it would happen to me. Still, it is not so bad. It could be worse.

I look outside my one room and the leaves are off the trees. The grass is withered and there is no breezes and not even a cloud. I live in my small room as I lived in my small apartment in Korea. I have privacy that way. I can see sycamore seeds hanging onto the branches of he trees. They are not giving up for rebirth, not just yet. My back aches as I stand looking outside. There are no birds, no sounds, no children, no one walking on the street. It used to be different when there wasn't non-stop televisions, computers and darken rooms when people sat on couches watching dvds, earphones on heads; but that was centuries ago. Radios are silent. Books stay closed. Do they touch?

Old huts disappear, old houses fall down, lakes flood towns, mountains are leveled for gravel and bombs create new lakes and the oceans grow larger as the ice shrink. Everything changes and the stones multiply until they become buildings.

I was sad in the earlier years but not now. Gray will turn into white and then grass as it does for everyone if we are lucky.