The sun is autumn calm
as though in mourning;
behind the slender cypress trees
behind the white wall of the graveyard. –
The grass all red in the sun. –
Do you wear the clogs of dogma?
A bicycle abandoned on an autumn road.
You ride through a dying landscape.
A staid man walks the field,
he is as cold as autumn,
he is as sad as autumn.
Faith in humanity.
To me it is a sacred thought.
A speechless silence is like sorrow.
I am no longer sad
for I do not think of myself.
Notes
translated by Katarina Jerin
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Comments
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Rich in imagery of sorrow, death, decay, fading. The last stanza presents an interesting option, almost a word-play or "trick poem" situation: read lines 12,13, 15 and 16 together. The message is compact and spiritually rewarding. By keeping lines 9-11,and 14 together, it presents the completed image of the man in the field. Line 14 is the anomaly in that is fits with either grouping.
The context of the poem gives strength to the title of the poem. Autumn is a time of dying, of yielding the the "breath" of winter.
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