Fisherman Drunk Along the Reed Bank
By Tang Yin
An oar sticks up
Amidst the reeds
Tied to it there’s a small boat
It’s around midnight
The moon hides behind
The head of the oar
The old fisherman
Is dead drunk
Call him but he won’t stir
When he finally does get up
His jacket will be
Covered in frost
*****
This scroll with a poem is by the Ming artist/poet Tang Yin. It is currently part of the collection of the Museum of Metropolitan Art in NYC. I thought of it recently and decided to translate the poem after coming across another, much shorter poem by the Japanese poet Masaoka Shiki. Shiki takes a very different approach by providing a first hand account about the joy of sleeping in a small boat. Sorry I don't have the original Japanese text of Shiki's haiku but here is my translation:
Asleep in a boat
I lie side by side with it ...
River of Heaven
And I'd like to add my own contribution to this emerging sub-genre about the joys of sleeping in a small boat, which I've written in response to Shiki:
Asleep in a boat
The waves keep murmuring
About eternity
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