Woman With Flowers
—Painting by Odilon Redon
"MIDNIGHT" SONGS
—Attributed to the Courtesan Tzu Yeh, C. 350-5001.
It is night again
I let down my silken hair
Over my shoulders
And open my thighs
Over my lover.
"Tell me, is there any part of me
That is not lovable?"
2
I had not fastened my sash over my gown,
When you asked me to look out the window.
If my skirt fluttered open,
Blame the Spring wind.
3
The bare branches tremble
In the sudden breeze.
The twilight deepens.
My lover loves me,
And I am proud of my young beauty.
When I started wanting
to know that man,
I hoped our coupled hearts
would be like one.
Silk thoughts threaded
on a broken loom—
who'd have known
the tangled snarls to come?
5
So soon. Today, love, we
part. And our re-
union—when
will that time come?
A bright lamp
shines on an empty place,
in sorrow and longing:
not yet, not yet, not
yet.
(translated from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth, Ling Chung, Jeanne Larsen)
Today's LittleNip:
Octopus traps—
summer's moonspun dreams,
soon ended.
—Basho
(translated from the Japanese by Lucien Stryk)
_____________________
—Medusa
Portrait of Violet Heyman
by Odilon Redon
