During the day, an old man comes to fish the river
a child sits beneath a tree surprised
the fisherman is calm, unhurried unlike the fish
whose fate is changeable the old man’s day
witnessed by the child though she
can hardly guess at his night-time
she only knows that in a bamboo grove far away
one can barely discern the old man’s house the child never
enters the dark green bamboo shelter keeps watch
for the old man on the small river bank on a rainy day
his white whiskers visible under a bamboo hat flashing silver
like a crucian carp’s belly the fish meets his fate
is loaded into a bamboo basket carried off by the fisherman
during this entire day rainwater and the small river
trace the child’s shadow under the tree
as her bench caves in she worries
about the fish’s fate as they come and go
grasping the bait in their mouths spitting it out
sometimes one among them
luckily takes the bait scooped up by the old man
who walks into another fate sees people chatting smiling
courteously . . . the child listens to the old man’s teachings
she cannot grow up during summer summer’s body
unveils mosquitoes’ fervor like fish out of water
leads the old man away in summer’s foul stench, suffused with death
too near to us on that night in the small house in a bamboo grove
the old man was killed for money
though rumor has it too many ghosts kept chasing him
Translated by Susan M. Schultz and Jennifer Feeley
EN 
MK