短歌と英語版 Tanka in Japanese and Their English Versions: May 2024
手のひらのような花が咲く その花は何かをもんでいるように動く
A flower like a palm
Has bloomed. It is moving as if
Massaging something
バンと爆ぜ色とりどりの断片が吹雪のように降り注ぐ虹
Exploding with a bang,
The rainbow falls in countless
Colourful fragments
風上へ向かってふわふわしゃぼん玉が何の苦もなく漂って行く
Toward the strong wing,
The soup bubbles are floating,
Nonchalantly, with ease
エサのあるところに星は集まるのであちらこちらに銀河ができる
Forming galaxies
Here and there, stars tend to gather
Where food is abundant
発情期の紙飛行機がたまにキスをしながら空をもつれ合って飛ぶ
In the mating season,
A pair of paper planes fly
Spirally, kissing
青空が崩れ落ちてくる ふわふわで軽いがやはり落ちてると邪魔
The blue sky has collapsed;
The fragments are all soft and light,
But quite cumbersome
髪の毛が操縦席の上あたりにふさふさ生えている髪飛行機
Hair airplanes have
Locks of hair over the roof
Above the flight deck*
*In Japanese, “paper” and “hair of the head” are both “kami,” so “paper airplane” and “hair airplane” form a pun.
忘却の扇風機なので頭から記憶がどんどん飛び去っていく
The wind of the fan
Of oblivion blows off
Memories from one’s head
花と花をひまわりたちが近づけて歯車のように回転させる
A pair of sunflowers
Are turning their flowers, which mesh
With each other like gears
風に吹かれ砂粒ほどの粒子になり木がさらさらと消え去っていく
Changing into grains
As small as those of sand, the tree
Is being blown away
暗くなるとテントウムシが羽根の点をホタルのように点滅させる
In the darkness, the dots
On the wings of ladybirds flash
On and off like fireflies
部屋の窓をまず開けてから私はテントウムシになって出かける
Opening the window,
I change into a ladybird
And go out, flying
青空についた足跡が砂の上の足跡のように風に消えていく
Like those on sand,
The footprints on the blue sky
Get blurred by the wind
大都市を覆うくらいの手のひらがまだまだ私は小さいと言う
The huge palm, which
Covers a big city, says,
“I’m still too small”
虹の上に子供の虹が乗っている 肩車虹と呼ばれたりする
“A piggyback rainbow”
Which carries a mini-rainbow
On its shoulders
雪よりもゆっくり雨が降ってくる 一粒一粒しずくが見える
Rain is falling
More slowly than snow. We can
Gaze at each raindrop
そのヤカンでお湯を沸かすと水蒸気の代わりにたくさん星が噴き出す
Innumerable
Small stars shoot out from the kettle
When it is boiling
象の鼻という名の蛇は格好も色も象の鼻そっくりだった In shape and colour,
The snake is quite like the trunk
Of an elephant
形だけは人間なのだが象のように厚くしわしわな皮膚に覆われた
Still a human in shape,
But covered with a thick, wrinkled
Skin like an elephant’s
近づくとレモンがぴゅーっと人間の顔に酸っぱい汁を吹きつける
When a human comes near,
The lemon squirts sour juice
At the human’s face
レモンたちがスパゲッティーにどぼどぼと汁をぶっかけスッパゲッティー
As lemons poured their juice
Abundantly, the spaghetti
Became a sourghetti*
*In Japanese, “sour” is “suppai” and “spaghetti” is written as “supagetti,” so “sour spaghetti” can form a pun as “suppa-ghetti.”
お年寄りが「空飛び券」を配っている もらった人は空へ飛び立つ
An old person is
Dealing out “fly tickets,” with which
Humans can fly freely
蛙たちが力を会わせ砂時計を何度も何度もひっくり返す
Frogs cooperate
In inverting an hourglass
Each time sand has fallen
私は口を開けるとオルゴールがのどの奥で鳴る 閉じると止まる
Each time I gape,
A music box begins playing
At the back of my throat
桜の木の下に集まり首を上に向け亀たちがじっと花見をしている
Under a cherry tree,
Tortoises have gathered and
Are viewing the blossoms
いくつかの星が近くをしゃぼん玉のようにふわふわ漂って行った
Right in front of me,
Like so many soap bubbles,
Stars go, floating
虹の縁に鳥たちが留まる 足もとの虹が薄れると鳥は飛び立つ
On the outer rim
Of the rainbow, birds have perched.
They fly off when it fades
空港の飛行機たちが先端から細長い舌をしゅるしゅると出す
Airplanes are flickering
Their long, narrow, red tongues
In the airport
幹や枝のところどころに駅があり列車も走っている鉄道樹
Trains are running
Along the boughs and the branches
Of the railroad tree
イチゴなのに丸い帽子をドングリのようにかぶっているイチゴングリ
Instead of a leafy hat,
The strawberry, like an acorn,
Has a cup on its head
小さくなれ小さくなれと念じたら虹がどんどん小さくなった
The rainbow shrank
Rapidly, as I prayed
That it might get smaller
それぞれが米粒くらいの大きさのミニカタツムリが身体じゅうを這う
Miniature snails
The size of a grain of rice
Crawl over my body
両腕を真上にあげて直立し「白菜になっています」と叫ぶ
Sticking my hands up
And standing upright, I cry,
“I’m a Chinese cabbage”
バナナマン、バナナウーマンのコスチュームが制服であるバナナ学園
I am a student of
“Banana School,” whose uniform
Is a banana suit
前を行く私の肩に両手を置きついていく私、私の行列
I following I,
Putting my hands on the shoulders
Of preceding I
世界一高い火山じゃないと言われ奮起し噴火している富士山
Mocked for not being
The world’s highest volcano,
Mt. Fuji erupted
ただ地面に立っているのは雪だるま 空を飛んでいくのはユキダルマン
Imitating
Superman, the snowman flies,
Fluttering its red cape*
*In Japanese, “snowman” is “yuki-daruma,” so, adding “n” to it, it becomes “Yukidaru-man,” which sounds like the name of a superhero.
木星と土星を合体させようと思いつきやがて実現させた
It occurred to me to
Unite Jupitar and Saturn,
And I did it
百倍のサイズの巨大ゴキブリが道路やビルの壁を這い回る
Cockroaches a hundred
Times as large are scurrying
On buildings and roads
ツキツツキにやたらめったらつつかれて蜂の巣のようになっている月
Pecked all over
By a moonpecker, the moon
Is honeycombed*
*In Japanese, “peck” is “tsutsuku” and “—pecker” is “—tsutsuki.” As “moon” is “tsuki” in Japanese, “moonpecker,” if there is such a creature, is “tsuki-tsutsuki.”
私の胴をつかんでけん玉のように頭部を首に載っける
Grabbing my trunk, she puts
My head on my neck, as if
Playing cup and ball
開けていた二階の窓からろくろ首が顔を突っ込み私に頭突き
Rokuro-kubi gave
Me a head butt, entering
Through an open window*
*Rokuro-kubi is a monster whose elastic neck can expand and contract. It can give a head butt to a person who is in a room on a higher floor, if a window is open.
ボーリングのピン畑では農家さんがせっせとピンを掘り出している
In the pin field,
Farmers are digging up
Pins for bowling
一本のバナナがくるくる回りながら縦や横になりダンスしている
Bananas are dancing,
Pirouetting and then
Turning on their back
ヒマワリがうつ伏せになって腕立て伏せ、仰向けになって腹筋をする
Sunflowers do push-ups
When lying prone, and do sit-ups
When lying supine
犬のような気質の猫と猫のような気質の犬しかいない異世界で
In a world where cats are
Like dogs by temperament, and,
Likewise, dogs are like cats
丁度いい大きさの星を探している輪っかが地球に近づいてきて
Looking for a planet
Which suits its size, a wandering
Ring draws near to the earth
スプーンとフォークがぴくぴく動くので動かないのに代えてもらった
As the spoon and the fork
Twitched, I had them exchanged
For ones which did not twitch
闇の中で光る果物をミキサーにかけたら光るジュースができた
With a liquidizer,
I make shining juice from fruits
Which shine in the darkness
私の両手が勝手にじゃんけんをしている やめて欲しいのだけれど
Though I want them to stop,
My right and left hands keep playing
“Rock-paper-scissors”
AIと人の会話は遅いけれどAIどうしの会話は速い
Though with humans, AIs
Talk slowly, but between themselves,
Their talks are quite rapid
注ぎ口をいろいろに振って手話のようにヤカンとヤカンが話し込んでいる
Kettles are conversing
Silently, wagging their spouts
As their sign language
大きめのキャベツの上に小さめのキャベツが乗っているキャベツだるま
Putting a smaller
Cabbage on a larger one,
I make a cabbageman
玉ねぎがとがった先をくっつけ合い片方逆立ち 「砂時計」の芸
A pair of onions,
One of them standing upside down,
Pantomime an hourglass
靴が二足誰にも履かれていないのに長い階段を上り下りする
A pair of shoes are
Going up and down long stairs,
Without a wearer
一羽二羽と数えていたらウサギたちに翼が生えて空へ飛び立った
When I was counting hares,
Using a classifier
For birds, they all flew up*
*The Japanese always use classifiers in counting. For birds, we use “wa (羽),” which derives from “feather,” but somehow, we use “wa” in counting hares and rabbits. Some think that it is because their ears resemble wings.
何かの目が空から巨大な虫眼鏡を通して地表をじっと見ている
An eye of something is
Watching from the sky through a huge
Magnifying glass
二対一くらいの比率で空と陸がただ描かれた絵「目に見えない虹」
A painting which depicts
The sky and the land, titled
“Invisible rainbow”
連なった数個の文字が伸び縮みしながら毛虫のように這い回る
A sequence of
Several letters is crawling
Like a caterpillar
「柴犬の漬物だから柴漬けです」「そんな怖いこと言っちゃだめです」
“Shiba pickles is
Pickles of shiba dogs.” “Don’t
Say such a weird lie”*
*“Shiba pickles” is pickles of vegetable. “Shiba dog” is a very popular breed of Japanese dogs.
標識から帽子をかぶった白い人が出てきて横断歩道を渡った
Coming out of a sign,
A gentleman walked across
A zebra crossing*
*In Japan, a traffic sing for a zebra crossing shows a gentleman walking on it.