Tadao Okazaki

Edelweiss

It's too high for orchard grass
to bloom
The bonnet bus
meanders to the sky's bottom

I listened to the mountain folk's
dancing song too late into the night –
the heart still aches
though the morning fog starts to lift

In a basalt-walled hut
an old man
with mist-colored beard
serves a yellow trout in a pan

old phonograph –
singing slower a song
of snow flower