When I breathe,_x000D_ This sound in my chest_x000D_ Lonelier than the winter wind
Interpretation
This quote expresses profound loneliness through the metaphor of breath and sound, comparing it to the coldness of winter.
In this quote, Takuboku Ishikawa uses the imagery of breathing and a sound within the chest to convey a deep sense of isolation and melancholy. The comparison to the winter wind emphasizes the harshness of this experience, suggesting a solitude that feels cold and unwelcoming, much like the winter season itself. It captures the emotional weight of feeling alone and the heavy silence that can accompany such feelings.
In practice
In a poetry reading, to illustrate the theme of loneliness.
Especially when the October wind With frosty fingers punishes my hair, Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire And cast a shadow crab upon the land, By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds, Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks, My busy heart who shudders as she talks Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.
I saw the gooseflesh on my skin. I did not know what made it. I was not cold. Had a ghost passed over? No, it was the poetry.
The unpurged images of day recede; The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed; Night resonance recedes, night-walkers' song After great cathedral gong.
So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.
In this particular tub, two knees jut up like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap navigates the tidal slosh of seas breaking on legendary beaches; in faith we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.
Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much? Have you practis’d so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
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