Drifting Boat

During the banquet

what poem can I say for him

as the wine cup comes

floating by on the winding

waters? I am not a stone

in the garden, nor

an oak, nor a stalwart line

of night-mooring rocks

Not a ship held at anchor

nor the treasure sought at sea

I am what it means

to wander—Ukifune

a boat long adrift

in the sound of dark water

Outside the house at Uji

where I have been put

I hear rain swept hills calling

and the cry of deer

the rush of water falling

the slow tolling of a bell

Who is it that hears?

So smoothly, so smoothly glides

my boat, that were I

to merge with the winter sea

would there be any ripple?

Snow falls on cedars

Snow melts from the bough also

Who is it that hears

the torrential ebb and flow

in the heart? In wine? In snow?

(Ukifune, Album leaf from The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. Ink and color with gold on paper, Edo period.)