Some Japanese hokku seem to defy translation into English, even though their meaning is not difficult. An example is Kyoroku’s:
Descending geese –
Their cries pile on one another;
The cold of night.
As one group of geese comes down from the sky, followed by yet another, their cries seem to layer one upon the other. This piling of cry on cry only intensifies the cold of the night.
Does this verse seem a little familiar? It should, because it is similar to Gyōdai’s
Leaves fall
And lie on one another;
Rain beats on rain.
In Japanese, forms of the word meaning “to pile up, to collect on one another” are operative in both, which I translate here as “pile on one another” in the first case and “lie on one another” in the second.
