by Chika Sagawa
OCEAN BRIDE
I do awaken to the sound of the wind snaking through a dark ocean of trees.
Beyond the gray skies
The cuckoo cries out,
Kefukaero, kefukaero—
To where shall I return.
In order to get to the tail end of noon,
The thicket of gooseberry and knotweed was quite deep.
The apples, in my half-faded memory,
Were in full bloom.
And the invisible screams, too.
If I rush past the damp windbreak path
I shall arrive at the dunes with the sorrels and wild strawberries.
They shine like jewels and are lovely to eat.
The ocean froths
And is spreading its lace.
The short train is headed for the city.
Alienated by the evil gods
Time alone, layered on the lip of the wave, is dazzling.
From there I await someone’s words
And hear a song pressing up towards reality.
Now is the time that people, like parasols,
Try to enter the banquet of trees covering the earth.
SONG OF THE SUN
A white body
Whirling in the searing wind
Kneels down in a shorn-off darkness
The beasts grown weary of sunlight and pleasure
Howl at a substitute for night
Because Dante’s Inferno does not exist there
But the old instruments have stopped playing
In the mirror of diamonds, the snow
Curves
Spreading its wings like the light
And then the veil
Conceals the music of the tattered air
And a voiceless season on some shore
Will radiate in youth and honor
MOUNTAIN RANGE
Distant peaks swaying like the wind
In the orchard at the mountain base, bright white flowers bloom
Paused in mid-winter, the hillside
Is beautiful like a spread of silk over every morning
Water flows noisily through my eyes
And I wish to bow down in gratitude—thank you—to an invisible being
But no one is listening there is no forgiveness
Will the turtle dove cry in sympathy
And echo my voice back to me
The snow will disappear
And laurel flowers and red lilies will bloom in the valley
Creating a covering of green
In the nettles, too, the slow summer will lurk
And in our hearts
How beautiful the flames that will flare up in a ring
OCEAN ANGEL
The cradle rings loudly.
A spray shoots up,
As if tearing off feathers.
I wait for the return of those able to sleep.
Music marks the bright hour.
I try to complain, raising my voice—
The waves come erase it from behind.
I was abandoned in the ocean.
VOICES OF SUMMER
It looks far very far
Wrapped in a thick wool manteau
It is purple like the fog
Saburo! Saburo! she yells
His mother awaiting reply
Above the deep slumber of summer
A lizard faces the wind
It looks near very near
Heavy knees have begun to move
On the edge of town the adults fret over the weather
And fuss about
Crouching, fallen silent,
Making us gossip all day long
When split, the water flows like pollen
SEASONAL NIGHT
Loaded with young green leaves
The last train of the light rail goes by
Quietly, like the back alley of the season.
It crawls along like a snail
Through the larch forest and to the cabbage fields.
Those with no business here should go ahead and disembark.
Six leagues to the dye factory deep in the woods.
Gleaming upon the dark evening road,
A trickle of sap.
THE STREET FAIR
A cloud has collapsed on the pavement
Like the horse’s white struggle for air
Night, screaming and shouting into the darkness
Arrives with the intention of murdering time
Wearing a mask plated with light beams
Lining up single-file from the window
People moan in their dreams
And fall from sleep to an even deeper sleep
There, a stem that has gone pale
Like an exhausted despair
Supports the tall sky
An empty city with neither roads nor stars
My thinking is to escape
That pitch-black metal house
Steal away the glimmer of pistons
And smoldering embers of noise
Retreat into a shallow ocean
Collide, get battered to the ground
1.2.3.4.5.
Under a row of trees a young girl raises her green hand.
Surprised by her plant-like skin, she looks, and eventually removes her silk gloves.
NEWLY COLLECTED POEMS
FALLING OCEAN
A red riot takes place.
In the early evening the sun dies alongside the ocean. The waves are unable to catch the clothes that float away after them.
The ocean builds a blue road from the vicinity of my eyes. Countless gorgeous corpses are buried below it. Annihilation of a band of tired women. There is a boat that hurriedly covers its tracks.
There is nothing that lives there.
TREE SPIRITS
Through the tunnel in the woods, following the telegraph line that stretches to the foot of the mountain
Once again a childhood memory comes back to me
The valley is dark, and it is cold
O wandering voice
You were right there
Twilight chasing the merchants who cross the streets of melting snow
A swarm of mosquitos circles higher and higher under the eaves
Ah—won’t you return. Right away
In the form of joyful cries. Deepening the melancholy of the boy’s day that shakes the mountains and seeps into the distant sky, all traces of people fade into the distance
FLOWER
1
Dreams are severed fruit
Auburn pears have fallen in the field
Parsley blooms on the plate
Sometimes the leghorn appears to have six toes
I crack an egg and the moon comes out
2
A snail crawls through the forest
Above its tentacles is the sky
3
The color of the wind is dark today
The piston charges ahead, breaking through the salty air
Rain turns to sand under the overturned morning
FLOWERS BETWEEN THE FINGERS
1
Walking along the back alley of the hotel yesterday, I spotted some yellow flowers growing just below the guardrails. A single dab of color on the dry dirt between the cracks in the asphalt.
The long line connected through the reflection of the bright afternoon pavement on the body of the car is beautiful. Many times I have wanted to chase after it. I thought I would find the sun there. The sound of the engine and the smell
of oil fill the city with a buoyant air, rattling windows on both sides. On the street corner a crane hoists iron beams up into the air. I hope that it doesn’t damage the thin air. The sound of things breaking, and the allure of a continuously dynamic space, are wonderful. Because I keep staring at the beauty of the jagged cross-section, I am perhaps only tiring out my eyes.
2
Begonias call up the image of Chinese women’s shoes. Small, lush, peach-colored flower petals dampen in the frame of a just-opened set of curtains.
Under a row of trees a young girl raises her green hand, calling someone. Looking in surprise at her plant-like skin, she eventually removes her gloves.
3
Late at night, a hammer in the shape of a human digs into the earth’s crust by the light of a small lantern. And tries to lead us to the other side of a pitch black hole. Any moment now there will come a time when we can forget the bright ground above. The destruction and construction of the land—these are the kinds of things by which humans are defeated.
4
A horse comes neighing up the hill. The breath exhaled from his nostrils were stark white clouds. He comes tearing through the street where the milk flows. I had thought that the flowers had bloomed in the fields.
5
In the cabbage field in the morning, drops of dew collect under large leaves, but most of these become the main diet of insects. Cabbageworms have such translucent bodies because they feed on gems of dew.
6
In a crystal vase, a single kensis stem grows. The liquid lead is toxic. When I read books, I remove my glasses and place them nearby.
LAVENDER GRAVE
All the keys have left the piano
I shall drown my joys into the pitch black wilderness.
Exposed chords of the air that obstruct
The naked parade of afternoon shall be severed.
Rhythmical waves long for the festival that has passed.
The loud laughter of the spirits, as if praying forever,
Prod the branches to take a bow
And blow out our activities.
The destruction of those giants
Will soon set the frozen marble into the earth.
SMOKE SIGNALS
Beating the golden tendon
In the light from the blue sky
The daughter of the sun
Applauds the new sacrificial ritual.
The morning plays
Upon the keys of the harpsichord.
Dirty ivory fingers are scrabbled together
And as life is burned
The time has come to spring into action.
NIGHT WALK
Deep in the night the pavement runs dry, crude as if covered in lead, green phlegm spit out everywhere. These raw globs conjure up the flower-like parts of the exposed, dirty, rotten organs of humans, driving me towards an elusive, eerie sensation. The people who by day conceal all they have to hide with their artful expressions and unctuous conversations must be the same ones who are relieved to abandon only the most monstrous parts of themselves throughout this darkness, among the newspaper scraps and orange peels. Bearing down on them with the teeth of their geta sandals, kicking them with their toes, men and women alike fled from these city streets at night. Then the commotion comes to a complete halt and it again falls silent as if nothing had happened. There are no dog eyeballs to flick away, and all shadow-like shadows sink into a plausible destruction, darkness licking its lips. What I fear are the tentacles of darkness that will completely do me in. Their inarticulate blades that melt my partially frozen heart with an invisible force, or simply abandon me at some point with no promises at all.
I walk on now. I consider how it was only these filthy residues that filled in reality while collecting the empty shells discarded by strangers, and how the beautiful feathers I had always believed permeated the blank spaces lay just above a muddy, undependable swamp. It seems as if that dizzying moment when arrogant personalities, buildings, and sounds filter through reality has just now taken place, but it might actually be an event from the distant past. A single drop of black water dripping from the mouth of a feeble bottle is pushed forth by night, which is made of something akin to the wall we lean on. It passes under the colonial harbor and flows through the hearts of those who have been betrayed—it is probably not possible to stem this flow until it grows light.
The windows of the houses on either side no longer flutter. They shut their entrances like mimosas as I pass by. Many eyes peek out of the cracks in the doors, and returning to the chatting they had just finished, they badmouth me, laughing at my peculiarities and spreading rumors. The sounds that leak out from within these quiet mumblings give me halt. They are after me. I am not permitted to turn back. Up ahead, the train tracks curve in the air, giving off brilliant sparks. I am merely running in place in a small circle, troubled by the soles of my feet that are sticky as if straddling a bumpy map. In terms of where I stand, I am only supported by the part of the ground where the heels of my shoes barely touch, and there is no extra space anywhere else. It is extremely difficult to walk with the instability of shackles. We repeatedly see the illusion of being shoved into a deep ravine. I cling to a piece of yarn, to a honeysuckle hedge. The electric crown that lights only our feet passes by, sneering at the people and distorting the faces of the apathetic men. As if to say, you’re hopeless, there’s nothing more for you to do. It would be plenty just to scoop up their cruel words and loud laughter.
Not that anyone is looking, but I shudder as if I was naked. There were no leaves on the roadside trees. I think my retina will tear at the touch. The arm of the monster that has held me captive until now is relentlessly coercive. It tries to make me believe, or to spoil my heart with sweetness. It is a deception that has just completed its intangible construction. It is a cruel lashing for the innocent woman forever trying to dredge up what she has lost. That is why we no longer hear the elegant echoes. Because the scent of ripened sunlight was not there either. Even as the internal organs of the internal organs are heaved out and torn to shreds, the voice separated from the flesh will get tossed out into the winter day, leaving behind its ugly skeleton.
I had longed to be overcome by a storm of freedom and love. But those ties were broken. Already the clearness of spirit has been lost, and the earth is fatigued, barely able to handle the weight of its load. It repeats the low-pitched sounds with an irritated look. The flash of light that sparks on occasion was the only coquetry towards tomorrow I could see.
I stir up some back alley face powder, count the coins in the palm of my hand, and the twelve-twenty-eight wind blows. The wind that traverses day and night takes me by both hands and begins to run. A film-like ocean floats up from between those swaying walls. On the dark surface of the sea where no amount of snow will collect, in a corner where no flowers bloom, where there is no slippage like in the city where I walk, a team of waves hiding some vacant disturbance calls back some nearly-destroyed memory, rushes forth at once and narrows the field of vision while imparting a damp, mica-like sparkle. That mournful outward appearance will lament. The wound is exposed—until it disappears while adding life to the fault lines of thought.