I left my locked mouth hanging on the wall

Some more of Muso Soseki in W.S. Merwin and Soiku Shigematsu’s translation Sun at Midnight.  

[I’ve discovered that this site reformats my line spacing – indentation on the second and double indentation on the third of every three-line verse – but I haven’t the energy to look into ways of overriding this]

17
[Untitled]

All on my own I’m happy
in the unmapped landscape
inside the bottle
my only friend
is this
wisteria cane
Last night
we stayed up talking
so late
that I’m afraid
I was overheard
by the empty sky

72
No-Word Hut

I left my locked mouth
hanging
on the wall
With the brushwood
door shut tight
I delight in my own freedom
Inside
my secret talk resounds
like thunder
Even the bare
posts and the lamps
can’t pretend they don’t hear

129
Hut in Harmony

When the master
without a word
raises his eyebrows
the posts and rafters
the cross-beams and roof-tree
begin to smile
There is another place
for conversing
heart to heart
The full moon
and the breeze
at the half-open window