Unfolding Bud

(Water Lilies, watercolor by Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943,
English writer, illustrator, sheep breeder, conservationist,
and creator of Peter Rabbit, among many others)

Naoshi Koriyama is a Japanese poet and translator, born in 1926, who works in both Japanese and English. He was interviewed in 2008 by Tim Newfields of Toyo University, Tokyo.

Newfields: Are you active in any poetry groups?

Koriyama: Well, I'm a member of the Poetry Society of Japan, a small group of mostly Japanese poets writing in English, and the Gerard Manley Hopkins Society of Japan. I admire the sonnets of that 19th-century English poet. That group has a New Year meeting and it’s my habit to read a poem about the new Chinese zodiac sign each year there. It has become a ritual for me to write a poem on January 1st and to drink an extra amount of sake that day.

UNFOLDING BUD

One is amazed
By a water-lily bud
Unfolding
With each passing day,
Taking on a richer color
And new dimensions.

One is not amazed,
At first glance,
By a poem,
Which is tight-closed
As a tiny bud.

Yet one is surprised
To see the poem
Gradually unfolding,
Revealing its rich inner self
As one reads it
Again
And over again.