Gedicht
Hiroshi Kawasaki
WHAT I SECRETLY SAY
I boasted several timesthat if I could not make a living by writing
I’d do anything –
even shine shoes.
Now I’m not so sure
whether
I could really do shoe-shining.
A twenty-six year-old fishmonger
was talking on TV
about the time he decided to marry his present wife:
“‘I’d do anything
to give you and our children a comfortable life –
even be a beggar,’
I told her.”
Another man there about the same age
had said this:
“‘We’d have a poor, hard life, but
would you go along with me?’
I said,
and she said yes.”
Twenty years ago
I would have slapped my knee at what the fishmonger said,
and I would’ve said,
“That’s great!”
Now
what those two men said
dazzles me.
An idea flashes across my mind
which, if my wife heard of it,
would make her keel over.
I may have already done in secret
what, if my daughter had known it,
would send her at me with a shovel.
And I have the surprising idea
that I am more normal now than before.
© Translation: 2006, William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura
WHAT I SECRETLY SAY
![](/media/4/7190_org_poem_hk_secretly.gif)
© 1978, Hiroshi Kawasaki
From: When my mind is away from the Sea
Publisher: Shichosha,
From: When my mind is away from the Sea
Publisher: Shichosha,
Gedichten
Gedichten van Hiroshi Kawasaki
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WHAT I SECRETLY SAY
From: When my mind is away from the Sea
WHAT I SECRETLY SAY
I boasted several timesthat if I could not make a living by writing
I’d do anything –
even shine shoes.
Now I’m not so sure
whether
I could really do shoe-shining.
A twenty-six year-old fishmonger
was talking on TV
about the time he decided to marry his present wife:
“‘I’d do anything
to give you and our children a comfortable life –
even be a beggar,’
I told her.”
Another man there about the same age
had said this:
“‘We’d have a poor, hard life, but
would you go along with me?’
I said,
and she said yes.”
Twenty years ago
I would have slapped my knee at what the fishmonger said,
and I would’ve said,
“That’s great!”
Now
what those two men said
dazzles me.
An idea flashes across my mind
which, if my wife heard of it,
would make her keel over.
I may have already done in secret
what, if my daughter had known it,
would send her at me with a shovel.
And I have the surprising idea
that I am more normal now than before.
© 2006, William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura
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