if the stream called me
It was that rancid smell that made me drive
her off. Damn! What a foul stench! Of course she
fought and cried. Of course. How would she survive
on her own? Who would take in a dirty
thing like her? No one, I am sure. That smell
of hers just wouldn't wash off. No. Call me
a beast, if you will. Say that there's a hell
for bad parents who desert their needy
children. I'm sure there is but I don't care.
What was I going to do with her? Me!
I am no believer in myths. A prayer
only works if someone hears it. And we
are deaf. Abandoned down by the river;
she is human now, a fox no longer.
The legend of a fox taking on human form to live among us is a curious idea. I was interested in just how a fox comes around to wanting to put on our skins and put up with our odd smells and customs? Why? In some stories the fox just does; s/he is a trickster and thus nothing is impossible. That uncomplicated answer might be fine for some; but nothing in life is that simplistic, I believe. Perhaps it has something to do with grief? Perhaps it simply happens at puberty for certain foxes; some fey fox child that always felt different and one day wakes up and their whole world has been changed forever? Perhaps.
Earlier today (instead of studying my anatomy terms for the test on Monday) I worked on a translation of a waka by the legendary poet Ono no Komachi (小野 小町), who lived around 825 - 900 A.D. As one of Japan's Thirty-six Immortal Poets her poetry focused both on the erotic nature of life and the grief that life can also hold.
The poem I worked on, number 938, reads in Japanese as follows:
wabinureba mi wo ukikusa no ne wo taete sasou mizu araba inantozo omou
わびぬれば 身をうき草の ねをたへて さそふみづあらば いなんとぞ思ふ
I translated it as:
My body, miserable,
drifting as aimless as a water weed.
If the stream called me
I would follow, I do believe.
Grief, in any world, is still grief. The poem echoed the sentiment of my poor fox-girl lost along the river bank. Here are several alternative translations:
Misery holds me fixed,
And I would eagerly cut loose those roots
To become a floating plant –
I shall yield myself up utterly
If the inviting stream might be relied upon.
(Brower & Miner)
This body
grown fragile, floating,
a reed cut from its roots…
If a stream would ask me
to follow, I'd go, I think.
(Hirshfield & Aratami)
Wretched that I am –
A floating water weed
Broken from its roots –
If a stream should beckon,
I would follow it, I think.
(Keene)
In my desolation
I am as duckweed:
Cut my roots and
Take me away — would the water do it,
I should go, I think.
(McAuley)