Me, the bird and the bell

A while back, I wrote briefly on a famous female poet (poetress?) named Kaneko Misuzu from the early 1900′s, who died tragically young. I frequently get ideas for posts from my daughter’s TV show on Japan’s NHK channel, called nihongo de asobo, because they often bring bits of poetry and famous literature to younger audiences (or foreigners who can barely read Japanese ).

One poem they very frequently feature was written by Miss Kaneko called “Me, the little bird, and the bell” or watashi to kotori to suzu to (私と小鳥と鈴と). When I dug further, I found the poem online easily and found the Japanese used was not very difficult, but rather very readable. It’s a beautiful poem, which I post here, Japanese first:

私が両手をひろげても、(watashi ga ryōte wo hirogete mo)
お空はちっとも飛べないが、(osora wa chitto mo tobenai ga)
飛べる小鳥は私のように、 (toberu kotori ha watashi yō ni)
地面を速く走れない。 (jimen wo hayaku hashirenai)

私が体をゆすっても、 (watashi ga karada wo yusutte mo)
きれいな音はでないけど、 (kirei na oto wa denai kedo)
あの鳴る鈴は私のように、 (anonaru suzu wa watashi no yō ni)
たくさんな唄は知らないよ。 (takusan na uta wa shiranai yo)

鈴と、小鳥と、それから私、 (suzu to kotori to sorekara watashi)
みんなちがって、みんないい。 (minna chigatte, minna ii)

My translation (unprofessional and likely flawed) is:

Even if I stretch out arms,
I can’t fly into the sky,
But the little bird who can fly,
Cannot run fast along the ground like me.

Even if I shake my body,
No beautiful sound comes out,
But the ringing bell does not
Know many songs like me.

The bell, the little bird and finally me:
We’re all different, but we’re all good.

Also, here’s a clip of one of the segments on my daughter’s favorite TV show featuring this poem:

Sometimes, they also feature readings of this poem by people from different parts of Japan, so you can hear different dialects like the infamous Aomori Dialect, Akita Prefecture dialect, Kagoshima dialects, and so on. Some of these dialects require subtitles because they’re practically intelligible to other Japanese, including my wife.

Anyway, I think it’s a really great poem, and a tribute to an excellent poet(ess).

Have a great weekend!