Larry’s Pretty Good Journal

While a sufficiently clever translator may be able to manage the progression wind-melt-ice-crack-spurt-wave and the desired imagery and the mixture of doubt, hope, and inevitability that is the first whisper of spring, I don't know that it can always be done with any semblance of meter. Not speaking Japanese, I can't speak to which translation is more technically correct, nor do I know which better captures the original intent. If you're asking which I like better, I prefer the second. Mind you, I know doodley-squat about poetry and could be steering you into Hallmark card land, so temper my thoughts with caution.