Michael Coy Poet Couplet

The Wind In the Pines 5

5.  Murasame’s Story Concludes

("Noh" is an ancient Japanese style of 
drama, broadly similar to Elizabethan
tragedy.  "The Wind in the Pines" is
my version of a well-known Noh play.)


MATSUKAZE & MURASAME 
(chanting in harmony) 
Pine wind, and autumn rain, 
women, sorrow: men, disdain! 

MURASAME 
As men are ready to play games, 
poets are keen to give names. 
He said I was the moon in wane, 
so he named me after the autumn rain. 
My sister's singing is divine, 
and he likened her to the wind in the pines. 

MATSUKAZE & MURASAME 
(chanting in harmony) 
Pine wind, and autumn rain, 
woman in love, woman insane! 

MURASAME 
He turned our rice water into milk. 
Our fustian gowns became silk. 
Three summers we passed, in sensual bliss, 
and now we are reduced to this - 
ladling brine on a moonlit shore, 
never to see our lover more. 

MATSUKAZE & MURASAME 
(chanting in harmony) 
Pine wind and autumn rain, 
prisoners in the moon's domain! 

MURUSAME 
Where humans gather, sickness thrives, 
diseases claim uncountable lives. 
Returning to the Imperial Court, 
Yukihira selfishly sought 
his own lettered architrave, 
but found instead a common grave. 

MATSUKAZE & MURASAME 
(chanting in harmony) 
Pine wind and autumn rain, 
he will not come back again. 

MURASAME 
Two keepsakes, which we still hold dear - 
my sister has them, brings them here - 
a man's cloak and a court cap: 
leather band, and understrap: 
with reverence, see, she gathers them close: 
to us, they are his living ghosts. 

MATSUKAZE & MURASAME 
(chanting in harmony) 
Pine wind and autumn rain, 
ghosts we are, and must remain!

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Darren White March 10, 2017 at 6:58 AM Lisa said in a comment to one of my poems: wowser :) Let me say that here, wowser. I could quote the refrains that are so delicately beautiful, but I loved this stanza better: "As men are ready to play games, // poets are keen to give names. // He said I was the moon in wane, // so he named me after the autumn rain. // My sister's singing is divine, // and he likened her to the wind in the pines. "// And the wind howls in the pines, bringing that melancholy and pain poets need. Michael Coy March 10, 2017 at 7:56 AM Thank you for "wowser"!