Readings and Reciting Mr. Mudie's Three Naoetsu Poems Made in the Prison Camp

Written and Translated into English by Hiromu Yagi
(Originally written in Japanese for the 30 March 2000 issue of Daily Joetsu Times,
a local paper in the Joetsu Region.)
 


 
"With head bowed down, I murmur one last prayer,
"To those I leave upon this foreign soil;
"Whose frames consumed by cruelty and by toil,
"Will never more breathe sweet Australian air."

Mr. Jack Mudie's deep, sonorous voice is echoing in the main hall of the Kakushinji Temple, louder than the sound of hail beating on the roof and the windows rattling in the north wind.
 

Mr. Mudie and Ms. Odake at Kakushin-ji
Mr. Mudie at the Kakushinji Temple
 
After he finishes reciting the first stanza, Ms. Reiko Ohdake reads aloud the same verse in Japanese translation.

"Atama o tarete, saigo no inori o watashi wa tsubuyaku, ...."

In spite of his letter sent to me with his Christmas card, both of them written by Mrs. Mudie for him, in which he said that his weakening eyesight and bad legs would prevent him from revisiting Naoetsu, Mr. Mudie is now reciting one of his poems made by him in the prison camp more than half a century ago!

When I was informed that 12 ex-POWs and their relatives were coming to Joetsu City, I selected three poems whose titles include the name of NAOETSU from among the 19 collected ones in "And Gum-Trees Nodding Under Azure Skies" to have them read aloud by Mr. Mudie himself.

On the evening of the 25th of March, the day of the visitors'  arrival at Naoetsu, at the dinner attended by the visitors, their followers and the executive committee members of the JASJ, "May in Naoetsu" is taken up. 
First, Mr. Mudie briefly explains the form of a sonnet. Then, prompted by the first line that his second daughter Jennie whispers for her father, whose eye-sight is failing, Mr. Mudie starts reciting the first stanza in a voice so firm and strong that you might not think it a nonagenarian's. His voice carries far to all corners of the large room without a microphone.

"The last of winter's snow still clings
"Upon the distant slopes;
"But spring has brought the warmer days
"To brighten up our hopes."
(The Jaoanese translation is read by Ms. Reiko Yokoseki.)

On the 26th morning, before he recites "Vale to the 60 Men Who Died in Naoetsu Camp," whose first stanza is quoted at the beginning of this essay, Mr. Mudie tells the audience how Priest Enri Fujito looked after the POWs, both dead and alive, with tender care.

"When days were grey, their tired yet steadfast eyes,
"Would turn to gleaming sands and rolling plains,
"To wheat-fields kissed by gentle southern rains,
"And gum-trees nodding under azure skies."

Poem Read at the Reception
"Activity in Naoetsu" for reading at the reception on 26/3

On the 26th evening, I choose "Activity in Naoetsu" for reading at the reception. This 120-line poem, the longest of the nineteen collected in the booklet, consists of six stanzas, each of which is made up of 20 short lines of three or four syllables.

I was most profoundly attracted to this poem as a reader-translator. My father, being from Kuroi, a village located in the suburbs of Naoetsu town, would take me to the beach and the harbour in my childhood. So the old seascape depicted in Activity in Naoetsu" was quite familiar to me.

   Coming upstream, 
     Hear the chug
   Of the sturdy
     Little tug;
   Coal from China
     Gleaming salt,
   Fill the barges, 
     Engines halt.

Then, from July 1944 to August 1945, when I was a 15-and-16-year-old middle school student, I commuted from Takada to Naoetsu, walking from Naoetsu Station to Arakawa Bridge, across the river, by the prison camp, and finally to the Stainless Steel Factory, where I had to work as a member of the labour service corps. I was one of the boys depicted in the fifth stanza.

   Early morning,
     Down the street,
   Endless files
     Trudging feet.
   Pairs of girls,
     Pairs of boys,
   Air is full of
     Clopping noise.

Above all, I was deeply moved by Lt. Mudie's warm sympathy toward Japanese common people, especially working women.

   Women toiling
     Everywhere,
   Always doing
     Double share.
   Sometimes dragging
     Heavy carts,
   Human horses
     Lions'  hearts.

At the reception, instead of Mr. Mudie's recitation, Lynnet, his eldest daughter living in Tokyo, reads the original verses and Ms. Yoshie Tanabe the Japanese ones. The two ladies, an Australian and a Japanese, reading each stanza alternately, make a perfect pair. While reading the latter half of the fourth stanza, Lynnet smiles brightly and her voice takes on a high pitch.

"But, when shopping,                  "Keredo, kaimono no toki niwa,
   "Don for snow,                            "Omekashi o surunoda,
"Gorgeous-coloured                   "Me no sameru yohna
   "Kimono."                                  "Kimono o kite."

Sitting in a front row, Mr. Mudie is listening intently to his daughter reading aloud one of the poems made by himself in the enemy's prison camp more than half a century ago, now at Naoetsu,where the camp was located during the war. A thousand emotions must be crowding into his mind.