While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout?
At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fo-Sa.
Very challenging to distil Ezra Pound’s the River Merchants Wife. I wanted to bring it down to just one senryu. After some thinking you’ll find my senryu at the bottom.
Chinese Riverscape
my forever love
never had its hold on you –
river calls your name
Linked to Carpe Diem
—
November 17, 2013
Björn Rudbergs writings 
Oh! Her feelings are so well engraved in this senryu. Well distilled. 🙂
Love that last line.
Yes. What a challenge. Well met!
a well distilled haiku. I feel the sorrow and her knowledge that she was not as close as the river was
Wow what a nice haiku you’ve distilled from this poem by Ezra Pound. I visited d’verse and was pleasantly surprised to read about Ezra Pound’s love for haiku. Awesome.
You did it so well!
really perfect…as always.