A Favorite Tanka

fearing
what lies in my heart
may be heard
I quickly draw back my chest
from the stethoscope

Ishikawa Takuboku (1886-1912)

We immediately visualize the scene. The doctor is approaching the patient/poet with an instrument typical of his trade. The voyage to the fifth line is gradual. We're caught up in the three lines, then surprised by the final one. There's a mystery here. Why so afraid? Yet we understand because we're all reluctant to share our deepest feelings, and it is our heart they inhabit, just as the heart inhabits the chest. Takuboku comes right to the point by naming the feeling and then showing it through the action I quickly draw back, thus increasing the poem's impact. Although a translation, the English heart/heard combination is visually satisfying. In his biographic notes, anthologist Makoto Ueda mentions that, while Takuboku was dying, he asked his wife to burn his diaries. Perhaps they, too, would have revealed secrets he preferred not to share. The concept of being able to listen in to secrets of the heart with an instrument is a refreshing one. The heart and its hidden feelings, the stethoscope and its inquiring ear (or is it the controller of the instrument?) become adversaries in this wonderful tanka. I'll never again endure a doctor's examination without thinking of these lines.

~ Peggy Heinrich

The translation of the verse is from Modern Japanese Tanka, An Anthology, edited and translated by Makoto Ueda. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. By permission of the translator.

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