of butterflies and orchids (in the Balinese Garden)

I stopped at a teashop. A woman named Cho, or Butterfly, asked me to compose a verse alluding to her name and brought out a piece of white silk. I wrote the following hokku on it:

fragrant orchid -
into a butterfly's wings
it breathes its incense.


Matsuo Bashō, Journal of Bleached Bones in a Field (1685, travelogue)
tr. Makoto Ueda




















Note:

This the first post dedicated to the amazing Gardens of the World, which i visited in the Recreational Park Marzahn, in Berlin. You can read more here.

..

mutilated by a dream

I injured a butterfly
in a dream.
And now I don't know what to do
to keep from dreaming about it again.

Another butterfly
came close to me while I was awake:
it was the same butterfly.

Perhaps a pact
between dreaming and waking will keep me
from recognizing
any other butterfly in the future.

Or mutilated by a dream now
I can only see
that single butterfly.


Roberto Juarroz
tr. Mary Crow

Lastimé una mariposa
durante un sueño.
Y no sé ahora cómo hacer
para no soñarla de nuevo.

Otra mariposa
se me acercó despierto:
era la misma mariposa.

Tal vez un pacto
entre el sueño y la vigilia
me impida en adelante
reconocer otra.

O mutilado por un sueño
ya sólo puedo ver
esa única mariposa.

..