Yone Noguchi

Yone Noguchi was born in 1875 in Tsushima (Japan). He is the first Japanese-born writer that published also in English. Thanks to that, he bacame a transnational writer, who went beyond language and cultural barriers. He arrived in San Francisco in 1893 and worked there as a journalist and a domestic servant. He visited Paris and Marseille. Noguchi returned to Japan in 1904 and some time later, went to Britain to give lectures on Japanese poetry. He met a lot of important literary figures, such as George Bernard Shaw or Ezra Pound. 

His work is considered to be cross-cultural and cosmopolitan. A lot of critics highlighted the enigmatic caracter of Noguchi's poems. 

I Am Like A Leaf

The silence is broken: into the nature 
  My soul sails out, 
Carrying the song of life on his brow,
   To meet the flowers and birds.

When my heart returns in the solitude, 
   She is very sad,
Looking back on the dead passions
  Lying on Love’s ruin. 

I am like a leaf
   Hanging over hope and despair, 
Which trembles and joins 
  The world’s imagination and ghost. 

I like the idea of a union with nature that Noguchi presents to us in this poem. The metaphore of "sailing out into the nature" really appeals to me. The nature here might be also a metaphore of good memories and moments of happiness. In the second strophe the author changes the positive image of "song of life" into a description of parting or breakup (?). It is rather enigmatic, we don't know who is "She". Being like a leaf means to Noguchi being in a constant movement between extreme opposites.

Based on: Wikipedia note and link.