When I breathe,_x000D_ This sound in my chest_x000D_ Lonelier than the winter wind
Interpretation
This quote expresses profound loneliness through the metaphor of breath and sound, comparing it to the coldness of winter.
In this quote, Takuboku Ishikawa uses the imagery of breathing and a sound within the chest to convey a deep sense of isolation and melancholy. The comparison to the winter wind emphasizes the harshness of this experience, suggesting a solitude that feels cold and unwelcoming, much like the winter season itself. It captures the emotional weight of feeling alone and the heavy silence that can accompany such feelings.
In practice
In a poetry reading, to illustrate the theme of loneliness.
I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain A use measured language lie's The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotic's, numbing pain In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er Like coarsest clothes against the cold But large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more.
Thou has left behind Powers that will work for thee,-air, earth, and skies! There 's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind.
And I will find some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,/ Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings.
The sky leans on me, me, the one upright among all horizontals.
America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.
Or from Browning some "Pomegranate," which if cut deep down the middle Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.
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