(Day 3, LA) Tell Me That in Verse (Yuki's Yurt, Closed)

[Moto Butaj]

Her excitement only encourages Butaj to smile wider. "Huludai is big and black bay as night, his coat does not fade, has stark blue reflections in full sun. He gallops like a gale but also eats a lot, so if you want him to carry you better bring the apples!" Butaj smirks at the mental picture, but then his mind glides to the next subject.

"Haiku is poetry, right? The Unicorn have their own poetry, travel poetry. Butaj knows only one poem that may be haiku. He shared it with Asako Hirase last night. Was it haiku?" He looks at the other man in the tent.

[Asako Hirase]

Looking up from his scroll, Hirase nodded, smiling.

"Hai, it was, and a good on at that. I'm certain Yuki-san will enjoy it."

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki was about to say something, but upon hearing that Butaj has a poem, she sits patiently, her eyes attentive as she nods in encouragement to the Moto to recite the poem.

[Moto Butaj]

Butaj is almost never bashful, and he isn't with the unfamiliar poetry style. He gives it his best, observing Yuki's face and form for reaction. Perhaps it could endear her a little?

"Shinjo, fleet and fair
She was never where she stood
Her soul the fifth wind"

Day 3 - LA - Butaj Recites Poetry for Yuki - Awa/Perform (Sensation, Voice), 1R (Show-off): 5d10o10k4 22

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki grinned and started to clap a little in excitement as Butaj finished. "Excellent, Moto-san. Since you're already so familiar this will be much easier. Not that it's a particularly hard poetic style, I suppose. Especially compared to some of the forms I read about that exist in the Burning Sands."

[Moto Butaj]

"Butaj is more accustomed to those other forms than to haiku but he will try. What are the things to remember about haiku?" Butaj looks hesitantly at the sumi-e boxes and paper. He smiles but he pulls on his beard a bit.

[Asako Yuki]

"Well, the most important is the line structure. Three lines, with the first and third being five syllables long, and the second being seven." Yuki explained, getting out several sheets of paper as well as her ink brush now.

"Nature is a common motif." Yuki explained, "here, let me show you." She said quietly before dipping the brush in some ink and getting to work. She finished quickly, and expertly, having put in good effort to keep up with Butaj's endeavor.

Cherry trees blossomed
Petals falling to the ground
The world has turned pink

[Moto Butaj]

Butaj can read and write. A bit. Well, apparently not enough. He doesn't get three characters. Maybe they are just shaped differently to what he knows. He leans over and stares as if he could decode it that way. "Would you care to read it for Butaj?" As a compensation, he figures out his own. Figures out... Figures out... Something they talked about... Something he would like to see... but nature! Oh... there it is! Butaj clears his throat.

"Snow on my steed's coat
Bright glimmer on the bay black
- A star on night skies"

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki paused for a moment in some confusion, but did her best to roll with it and she spoke her poem aloud for Butaj so he could better enjoy it. As he spoke his own she smiled and nodded. "Excellent, Moto-san."

"I just thought of something though." She did actually glance at Hirase with some worry here. "If we were to write, or speak, a haiku in a different language, it would be almost impossible to translate it to Rokugani without breaking the form."

[Moto Butaj]

"It is lovely! Butaj would like to see that, so much pink from cherries." He nods in vigorous approval. When translating poetry is discussed, Butaj doesn't know if it is with him too, but he decides to offer his thoughts. "Butaj thinks that in many languages many words mean similar things, and poetry passes impressions that can use them in different combinations. Butaj is no Suio to be a polyglot, but if he translated poetry he would go by what the heart reads from words."

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki smiled. "I'm sure you will. Cherry trees are quite common here in Rokugan." She listened to Butaj's response. "Hai, it's just interesting that, directly translating a poem you may get the direct meaning, but you would lose the nature of the poem, by breaking the syllable method. Much like if one wrote a Ruba'i and translated it, a direct translation would break the rhyme scheme." She smiled. "Far more complex of an issue than simply translating regular texts."

[Moto Butaj]

"Asako Yuki can compose rubaiyat?" Butaj's eyes open wide with admiration and amazement.

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki blushed some. "Well, I wouldn't say I can compose them. I've tried a few times though. I don't have the calligraphy skill to do anything truly worthy of calling them ruba'i yet, and as I said translating them is still an issue." Still, she dutifully turned back to a sheet of paper. "I'll write one that I remember." She said, partly to herself, before beginning her work in rather weak Mekhem. Once it was done she spoke it for Butaj.

Wake! For the sun, who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.

(From Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat)

[Moto Butaj]

Butaj knows how to write in Mekhem much less so than in Rokugani, which amounts to nigh on nada. But there has always been enough of Mekhem spoken to him to soak in pieces of language he did not even fully comprehend. As Yuki recites, he closes his eyes and his memories go back to his mother repeating a rubi'a that seemed close to her soul. She didn't speak good Mekhem either but somehow these verses she memorised flawlessly. Only now does Butaj realise why could it be so. Why his skin has the tinge it has and why a rubi'a is not neutral to his soul. He mumbles for a moment before he recites in flawed, ill-accentuated Mekhem, having only vague realisation of the content.

"A book of verses underneath the bough
A flask of wine, a loaf of bread and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness
And wilderness is paradise now."

(Same source.)

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki's eyes lit up as she spoke the next quatrain of the rubaiyat.

Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

Giggling some, Yuki looked at Butaj. "Wonderful, Moto-san. Though, I suppose, among some company that would get odd looks. Many samurai, I think, would not be so welcoming to gaijin poetry." She sighed. "Some don't even think the gaijin are capable of poetry."