Thought for the Day (June 17)

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (June 17)
From: Peter T.
Date: 17 Jun 99 - 10:35 AM

Dear Neil, I squirrel away things in my overloaded closet! This is one of the most erotic Japanese poems I know: it was told to me originally by a Japanese businessman from Kamakura, who was very drunk, late one night in a hotel in Kyoto. He was passionately in love with Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu (two of the great Japanese poetesses). He reeled off this poem, and about ten others, and proceeded to translate it very carefully so I would not miss a single nuance, and in doing so he got so excited that in the end he rushed off in search of a prostitute. It was completely hilarious. I, of course, went demurely back to my room. There is a fine, if slightly cool translation of both women in a book called The Ink Dark Moon trans. Hirshfield and Aratani. from which the version above was partly swiped.
Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (June 17)
From: Neil Lowe
Date: 17 Jun 99 - 09:48 AM

another gem.....as was yesterday's from Philip Larkin. Where do you get these?

Subject: Thought for the Day (June 17)
From: Peter T.
Date: 17 Jun 99 - 09:41 AM

A diver does not abandon
a seaweed-filled bay....
Will you then turn away
from this wet, entangled, sea-foam body
that awaits your gathering hands?
-- Ono no Komachi, Japanese poetess (ca.850)