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The Vixen
Translation by William I. Elliott
When snow falls
on the back of the wild fox,
she becomes a pale blue shadow.
At night in a blizzard
the shadow comes running down
straight from the mountain,
circling the fences in a frozen village,
moving around the orange dreams of the people.
The blue shadow, before they know it,
sits in front of a chicken coop.
Before dawn in February,
in the gleam of a damask mantle of snow
the vixen returns to the mountain.
She is pregnant.
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- About the translation:
- Poet:
- Shinjiro Kurahara
- Translator:
- William I. Elliott
- Original language:
- Japanese
- Issue:
- Series 3 No.11 - Frontiers
About the author
Original poet
Shinjiro Kurahara
Born in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, in 1899, Shinjiro Kurahara studied French literature at Keio University; but his original...
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Translator
William I. Elliott
William I. Elliott has lived for forty years in Yokohama, teaching literature at Kanto Gakuin University. His books include cr...
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