Pathway to Japanese Literature

Spring Cape

Spring cape—seagulls at journey’s end.

Floating as they drift—how far they have gone.

Baby carriage

Mother—

Pale and sorrowful things drift down.

Hydrangea-colored things drift down.

The endless shade of lined trees

The wind soughs and blows.

The hour is dusk.

Mother, push my baby carriage

Toward the tear-stained sunset

Push my baby carriage with a rumble
A velvet hat with red tassels
Press it upon your cold forehead
Even in the ranks of birds hastening their journey
The seasons journey across the sky
Pale and sorrowful things drift down
Hydrangea-colored things drift down the path

Mother, I know
This road stretches far, far into endlessness.

Snow.

Taro was put to sleep, and snow piled on Taro’s roof.

Jiro was put to sleep, and snow piled on Jiro’s roof.

On the stone pavement
Ah, sorrowful petals flowed
Petals flowed toward the young girls
Young girls spoke quietly as they walked
Radiant footfalls drifted into the sky
At times I lifted my gaze
The hallowed temple's spring passed onward unshadowed
The hallowed temple's green tiles glistened with moisture
Beneath the eaves
Since the wind chimes hung silent

Alone,

Upon the stone pavement walking my shadow

Boy

Dusk.

From the gate of a certain monastery
The beautiful boy returns home.

On a day quick to dusk

He tossed the handball.
He tossed the handball high into the sky.
Still at play, he returned home.

Tranquil town's
People and trees alike subdue hues,
The sky flows dreamlike.

Echo.

Dusk had enveloped all directions, and clouds resembling a blue world map hung low over the horizon.
In the plain where wind blew through blades of grass alone, he called out for Mother in a high voice.

In town, people often said his face resembled Mother's and laughed.
Bending her spine like a fishhook, in which direction did Mother continue leaving her dotted footprints?
On the white path floating in dusk, he called out toward that distant place for Mother in a high voice.

What reached his ears so quietly—was that the echo of his own cry, or a cry from afar where a mother called to her own mother?

Dusk enveloped all directions, and blue clouds hung low over the horizon.

Lake.
Someone had died in this lake.
That was why so many boats were out.
Where among the reeds and waterweed had the corpse hidden itself?
The whistle signaling its discovery had yet to sound.
The wind blew, carrying sounds of oars and paddles cutting through water.

The wind blew, carrying the smells of grass roots and crabs.

Ah, did someone know that?

That someone had died in this lake at dawn.

Did someone truly know?

And yet night had already fallen this deep.

Village

The deer, its antlers bound with coarse hemp rope, was confined to a dark storage shed. In that sightless space, those blue eyes had settled as it sat with perfect composure. A single potato lay rolled on the ground.

Outside, cherry blossoms scattered while from the mountain direction, someone laid their trail using a bicycle.

Showing her back, the girl gazed at the thicket. On the haori's shoulder, she fastened a black ribbon.

Spring

Goose.
They cried out to avoid losing themselves amidst such numbers.

Lizard.
No matter which stone I climb, my stomach remains cold.

Village

With eyes wide open and clear with terror, the deer was already dead.
With a face like that of a taciturn, logical young man, it lay dampened by the evening's misty rain under the eaves of the lumberjack hut.
(The dogs had bitten the deer to death.) A wound near the femur, where pale ink-colored fur tinged with indigo rippled, burned redder than camellia blossoms.
Extending legs like walking sticks, the patch of white fur near its hindquarters, soaked with water, trembled as it clung.

From somewhere, a thread of scallion scent drifted.

The mitsumata flowers bloomed, and the hut's waterwheel turned loudly.

Fallen leaves

Autumn had turned completely to fallen leaves, their vivid reflections brightly coloring the forest's dusk. Across a blue stream, I saw a young girl turn into a narrow path between pampas grasses. There she snapped open her black umbrella. I followed along the stream. I stood at the bridge's base. The bridge's name was "Kokoro no Sori". Upon the water's surface, various thoughts adorned themselves in evening's makeup. I followed along the stream. I stood at the bridge's base. The bridge's name was "Tsugumi". Its shadow trembled on the water's surface. I leaned my weight upon the cane. In the distance I saw another bridge. I crossed another bridge. What was that bridge's name?—That bridge's name I would bestow: "My Monokuru."

And the day fades quickly.
Is my walk not already too far?

Mountain Pass

I was sitting at the mountain pass.

The nameless little mountain pass was utterly engulfed in thickets of mixed trees and miscanthus.
The milestone marking two and a half ri to ×× was only discovered in the thicket after someone had finally finished smoking a single cigarette.

The people of the fishing village I aimed to reach used to cross this mountain pass every morning long ago to come sell fish, but after petroleum steamships came into use, I had heard in the previous village that their sales route had been redirected across the sea.
I had climbed up to this mountain pass without encountering a single person.

The path was terribly rough; having been washed away by rain over time, it continued so that it was easily lost among wild roses and pampas grass. In the forests on both sides, wild doves were calling.

The sky was clear.
In the distance, where the thicket broke away, several grass-covered hills bathed in bright sunlight came into view, and beyond their softly undulating curves, Amagi—shrouded in indigo haze—dominated the sky.
My empty heart, while gazing at those hills, found its moderate fatigue soothed by the mild autumn day when I thought I heard what resembled the faint explosive sound of a motor vessel coming from a direction that might have been either a basin at the foot of distant mountains invisible from here or somewhere along those mountain slopes—(it seemed to continue for some time)—but when I suddenly grew suspicious and strained to listen, there was already nothing but profound silence.
From time to time, the wind would stir the thicket and pass through, and the hum of bees' wings would vanish in an arc through it, only to return again from somewhere.
A swallow with white wings swooped down in a swift rustle of feathers.

I contemplated: if there exists a mountain pass here such as this, then upon some chance fold high in those mountains visible from here, there must be small passes exactly like this one. In some of those passes, the wind must blow and bees and swallows fly; there too I sit—. And as I gazed at the small white wildflowers scattered at my feet, I came to know several of those hidden mountain passes.

I carefully extinguished the cigarette's ember.
The afternoon had already grown somewhat late.
And as I contemplated this path ahead where I would likely encounter no one, and considered the unfamiliar, overgrown descent, I felt disheartened that even my birdlike free time—so distant from all others—must still abruptly rise and depart.
The days of travel had already accumulated.
I had been feeling a sorrow akin to illness in my traveler's heart.
Yet the heart with which I journeyed today must be none other than that of the ancients who entrusted themselves to the scenery around them and sang of the passing seasons.
The sea would come into view soon.
And yet, how easily my heart aches in autumn!

Ah, let me listen to the pine winds of that seaside village, soak in the dark inn's bath, and gaze upon the cape from its window—before the sun sets on that cape—.
And I heard waves lapping against my heart.

I descended the mountain pass.

Town

A small town perched in the mountain basin, lifted skyward as if in prayer upon its mournful, barren platter.
A single small town, squared by breastworks crumbling soundlessly each night.
Rows of poplars with dense branches surrounded it on all sides, casting shadows of centuries gone.
Even now at dawn, pale blue cranes would swoop overhead with wingbeats like a storm's howl.
By day from the tower gate came a column of squealing pigs that tumbled and vanished their gaunt black forms into plains of scrub.
Should one hear then the distant creak of some mournful sound, in time they might see beneath those poplars' shade a small two-wheeled cart drawn by an ochre ox—heaped with melons in summer, firewood in autumn—slowly wending toward the tower gate.
Within the gate's shield-shaped lattice—wood blackened by age—a bell that long forgot its voice hung dimly beneath vaulted ceilings, floating with silence's ancient dignity.
On breastworks left to crumble and among poplars left to pale profusion, magpies gathered and fluttered, shaking white-dappled tails as they raised through day their stony cries.
And were the moon—near first quarter's end—to tilt its faint arc over distant millet fields and cornfields, over bone-dry ranges toward some lost noon point, then all would know in an instant their helpless fate within this desolation—barren waves cloaking solitude no culture ever touched.
To make surrounding bleakness bleaker still, this breastwork-ringed town at times sent quiet tendrils of hearth smoke curling upward.

Long ago, through which direction of the mountain range did their ancestors come to establish this town?
On the day this town was completed, through which direction of the mountain range did their enemies come again?
And by how fierce a battle must these breastworks have been divided?
All that history was forgotten without a care, and people single-mindedly followed unchanging customs—taking the same yellow food from vessels shaped like their ancestors', sowing the same seeds in fields, clothing themselves in the same garments, passing down the same topknots and crowns upon their heads.
As if this were their very law, they remained perpetually indolent, sleeping greedily at irregular hours; between fragments of dreams they would rise, puff out their thick chests, and gulp down great quantities of water with gurgling throats—for the air currents raged with dryness.

When night came at last, how darkly would this town drown and sink into the pressure of darkness and silence, like coral reefs swallowed by high tide? And within that darkness, into vessels of what shape would what manner of lamps be lit? Or perhaps there was no use for lamps at all? I did not know that. Even now, I sometimes stand at the mountain pass of recollection and gaze upon this town in the distance, but my memories always hurry back toward where the sun sets.

Autumn Night Literary Musings

Days had passed since the cuckoo ceased its song; wondering if that was it, I stepped outside—only to find the clear-toned singers were distant crickets.
Persimmon fruits fell resoundingly onto stones; I looked up to see swift winds racing clouds and the moon speeding through the sky.
A desolate austerity showed its signs in the fields, tormenting the traveler’s heart; as night approached, I wandered through the scent of autumn silkworms near the inn.
And when I returned to my room and lay down neglectfully, though time still hastened on with sleeves grown thin—

A winter wind drew near where I lay my head.

At times, I perceived in the spacious front garden how mountain rains would briefly rush away.

Beneath the camphor trees' canopy, even the undersides of leaves turn white—ah, this moonlit night.

The fallen leaves had ceased.

The hen scratched at the soil; scratching, she stepped back and tilted her small neck slightly.
Into the sky clouded with the threat of winter showers, the rooster raised its cry.
The maid in the white apron—a diligent worker—gathered the fallen leaves in the garden and set them ablaze.
My room, with a wisteria trellis before the corridor, remained dim even at midday.
Occasionally, those fallen leaves would find their way beneath the floor cushions.
One day, the wisteria trellis had shed all its yellow leaves and stood open broadly to reveal the sky.

A candy seller—autumn wind blows through maiden bamboo.

The ailing one today snips pomegranates—ah.

A reply came from Mr. Kajii Motojirō, who was convalescing in Izu; regarding the pomegranate verse’s mention of ‘snips,’ I was admonished that it was difficult to discern whether it meant pruning or harvesting.
Furthermore,

A single pomegranate reddened by winter showers—ah.

And I too, fearing my minor ailment might grow severe, hurriedly returned to my hometown.
There as well, the same fruit had ripened.

The sea’s sapphire pomegranate splits day by day.

In winter's shallow days, the gamecock's spurs lay soiled—ah.

I heard Mother's scoldings two or three times, and then winter fully set in.
At times I stayed home; at others I wandered along the seashore.

The shadow of a palm tree sank into the wall called winter.

In a winter's sunlit spot, a chicken sat.

The fallen leaves had ceased; in the chicken’s eye, the sea appeared reflected.

Morning Meal Facing the Pond

Water clears

A timeless light winter drizzle

Birds crying—

The birds' nests too have changed with the days.

To call solitary dwelling desolate

How many times

I paused with my chopsticks during breakfast.

If I gazed upon glittering fish,
though still undefined, I felt a day's sorrow.
Think of joyful things.
Though I thought thus and clung to joy,
the small fish vanished into the water.
How I had clung to nothing but sorrow!

Winter Day

A winter day—quietly, I shed tears.

If I shed tears,

The mountain shapes grew crystal clear,

The sky turned vivid blue,

A small cloud drifted.

Soundlessly.

All people devote themselves to their livelihoods;
May there be upon me too
May there be good works upon me too—
Thus I pray—
Yet my tears remain unwiped by my own hand.

Now in this world,
all alike,
nothing remarkable—

Crow

On a day of swift winds under a cloudy sky where even the sun’s whereabouts were unclear, I wandered through endless fields along a deserted single path.
The wind called to me from every horizon, seized my sleeves and swirled about my hem, then vanished its own fierce cries into nowhere.
At that moment, I suddenly noticed a single black coat discarded on the withered grass.
Once again, I heard a voice calling out to me from somewhere indeterminate.

“Halt!”

I stopped and searched my surroundings for the source of the voice.
I felt terror.

“Take off your kimono!”

In the midst of terror, I felt shame and a faint anger, yet had no choice but to obey those commanding words.
Then the voice, even more coldly,

“Strip completely!”
“Pick up that coat and put it on!”

And with an authority that could no longer be resisted, it commanded me from among the grass.
I draped the coat over my wretched form and stood exposed to the wind.
My heart prepared for defeat.

“Fly!”

However, what a strange and unexpected word this was.
I looked down at my own limbs.
My hands had become long wings folded beneath my arms; my scaled feet stepped on stones with three toes.
My heart once again prepared for obedience.

“Fly!”

Urged on, I kicked the earth.
My heart suddenly overflowed with rage and was pierced by sharp sorrow; single-mindedly I soared away from this land of humiliation, straight ahead without destination.
Emotions lashing emotions, will lashing will—
I had been flying for a long time.
And now, having flown far from that wretched defeat—feeling fatigue in my wings—I dreamed of a hopeful sky that ought to bless my defeat.
And yet—ah!
Was it not that obstinate commanding voice I heard close to my ear at that very moment?

“Cry out!”

Ah, now at last I shall cry out.

“Cry out!”

――Very well, I shall cry out.

And then, crying, I flew.
Flying, I cried.

―Ah... ah... ah... ah...

―Ah, ah, ah, ah,

The wind was blowing.
In that wind, as autumn scatters leaves, I was scattering words.
Something cold kept streaming down cheeks.

Garden

The sun was still blocked by the dark warehouse, and the frost-covered garden lay spread beneath a vast cold shadow tinged purple. What I had picked up that morning was a crow frozen to death. Its stiff wings folded in herringbone pattern, gray eyelids shut tight. When I threw it down, it fell onto the withered grass with a hollow thud. Drawing near to look, I found it quietly bleeding.

From somewhere in the clearing sky came another crow's cry.

Night

The sound of wooden clappers resounded rhythmically all night along the city's parapets.
It circled endlessly around people's slumber, summoning dawn to the distant horizon as its ringing grew ever clearer, casting echoes in every direction.

That night, a young patrolman picked up a single blue star that had fallen asleep among the grass. It seeped cold into his palm, staining the surroundings with a phosphorescent glow that etched his form against the darkness. When he gazed upward in wonder, the keystone of some constellation hung faintly white where it had lost a blue bud. Thereupon he hastened to rouse the slumbering star from its deep stupor and, with fingertips gentle as those releasing fireflies, sent it back skyward. The star blazed dazzlingly, swaying wide at first before straightening its course and returning to its place like some momentary dream.

A hundred years would pass, and soon a thousand more would follow. And after this most righteous of deeds, toward that star which would likely never again descend to earth, he gazed long into the trackless void at what resembled a single watercourse akin to remorse.

Garden

With dusk came a young man from somewhere unseen—hidden among the trees, he was firing an air rifle into the pond.
The sound of pellets slicing through water reached me as I was reading my book in the shadow of the artificial hill.
Within the ripples, white Japanese irises bloomed.

A group of toads hurried along the base of the embankment with aimless urgency.
Their bellies white as gardenia flowers, a thin wound running diagonally through them, they still caught one another's backs with their paddling legs.
Behind them flowed something cold—as though to reach even that distant star—and came a group of toads trampling something heavy as nightmares.

On the page where I had turned my eyes, I saw old fingerprints.
I closed the book and returned to the room.
Until that day had completely darkened, within my mind's eye, pellets cut through water and white irises swayed.

Garden

To the spot beneath the pagoda tree where I had been shown, I drove the pickaxe deep into the grass with a heavy thrust. Then, after no more than five minutes, I easily struck upon it; I unearthed a skull caked in earth. I went to the pond and washed it clean. I regretted both the wound on the temporal bone caused by my carelessness and the lingering sensation of the pickaxe's impact from earlier. Returning to my room, I placed it beneath the bed.

In the afternoon, I went to the valley to shoot pheasants.
When I returned and looked, water was flowing around the bed's legs.
Around the still-damp eye sockets and temporal wounds of the heavy toy I had retrieved, small red ants were busily appearing and disappearing—it was like a pale brown castle of strangely elegant form.

A letter came from Mother.
I wrote a reply to it.

Bird Language

The white parrot hung at my window—its one leg fastened by an old chain to a golden ring whose circumference it gnawed all day long, now thoroughly rusted—would always cry out the same single phrase whenever it suddenly sensed some capricious void in a distant direction.

—I killed someone, but…

In truth, it was a shrilly pronounced French phrase—merely "J'ai tué..."—so simple that translating it this way makes it entirely my imagination.
But again, there is reason even to this imagination of mine.

Initially, as an experiment born of my own contrivance, I tentatively supplemented it as "J'ai tué... le temps," and under that framework, each day I continued my disordered reading without paying it any mind.
In other words:

――Whether yesterday or today，I spend my days uselessly.

"And with that," she said, innocently tilting her head at my window.
And then afterward, it was Rose—the tall, slender maid of this household—who first hinted at the ominous meaning of those words to me one day during a chance conversation.
The maid called Rose, now advanced in years, seemed to have spent her fate and time always honestly in a corner of the main residence over long years from Nagasaki through Kobe until coming to dwell in this manner in Tokyo’s outskirts together with the family of this household where I now resided.

“But… it really is strange, isn’t it? The people of the house must all surely dislike hearing it.”

I no longer wished to hear anything further from her about it. For me—newly arrived, having merely rented a room in the interstices of this family—the meticulous probing into those trivial, long-transformed historical events of these people who had migrated from some unknown foreign land had already lost its appeal even as a pastime. For ultimately, the truth of any matter whatsoever proved far more powerless than unfettered ideas—than my own imaginings.

――J'ai tué…… I killed someone, but……。
*J'ai tué…… J'ai tué…….*

Even so—but for what reason had someone killed someone? And when was that? Where? How? Enough—what does the vanished past matter now! But before all else, if I believed those words, this bird chained to the golden ring must have killed someone. There in an instant, my imagination swiftly wove a tapestry of bizarre designs. For example, I would ask the housewife here in this manner.

“Please answer—it must have been this way. Long ago, your family’s grandfather instructed your husband: ‘Once I am gone, do not remain in this country—go live in the distant East, in Japan. I have reached an age where I can no longer endure such journeys, but you must go.’ ‘Do not ask for reasons—this is my final wish. When I die, fulfill it swiftly.’ He must have said those words to your husband.”

“That is correct.”
“My late husband Jean once told me such things.”
“Did you too hear it from that Jean at some time?”

“No, I do not know your Jean.”

……And then one day, Grandfather had grown cold in his morning bed, having passed away without anyone knowing.
In the room, there was nothing at all different from ordinary.
Only the living parrot that had hung by Grandfather's pillow—it must have been so—began crying such ominous things from that very morning when noticed.
At the time, they must have thought of discarding it somehow—but even a broken shoe had nowhere to be thrown away, let alone a living bird; nor could anyone, not even a child, honestly believe the bird's words had hastened Grandfather's life simply by their literal meaning. Moreover, given how dearly Grandfather had cherished that parrot over long years, it now stood as the sole surviving remnant of his memory—and thus no one in this house could bring themselves to part with it.

“That’s correct.”
“That does not differ in the slightest from the facts.”
“What you say brings no joy to me or anyone in this family, but I will answer honestly.”

Even if this conversation were a product of my imagination, I knew the courtesy of terminating it there.

The facts were all too clear.
Jean’s father, who had died at dawn, had likely harbored words kept secret from all for longer than half his lifetime—words that made him lead a life of strangely muted silence.
He must have endured countless sleepless nights.
Indeed, until that final dawn when he departed this world, he must have trembled with pitiful dread at the premonition that this night might be his last, all while repeating the fierce remorse over an unrestrainable passion from days long since passed.
And in that dawn—when accumulated melancholy mingling with nocturnal fatigue brought him fleeting solace—unaware of the windowpane growing pale, he suddenly murmured unforgettable words from his crumbling chest of memories like a prayer or sigh.
Then from his pillowside came this parrot that should have been sleeping, repeating those very words once more into his ear with its cheerful morning voice.

――I killed someone, but……。

Indeed, this time the bird’s words killed him.
And ever since then, this bird has continued to cry out those words within the circumference of the now completely rusted golden ring of her firmly bound fate.
I hear this phrase many times a day—a phrase that was once his remorse and is now hers, which feels strangely nostalgic when I consider it.

――I killed someone, but……。

This phrase gradually seeped deep into my heart as I listened to it time and again, and day by day became intermingled with my memories.
And now, even if someone were to say that I had killed a person long ago in days past and lay a crime upon me, I would likely not deny it.
Today as well, above my disorderly reading and the dahlias blooming at the window, the bird repeats those same words.
――You too should come to my room and listen to this bird’s words.
If you have no memory of killing someone and yet still desire that distant scar of remorse—

On the grass

★

When I go out to the field and sit,

I am waiting for you.

But that's not quite it,

As if we had made a firm promise,

I am waiting for you.

But that's not quite it,

When I go out to the field and sit,

I am waiting for you.

And so the sunlight shifts——but——

★

Where are the evening cicadas crying?

In the forest, in the mist.

Dahlias at my waist,

Sunflowers on the shoulder.

At the temple, the bell rings.

A beggar passes by.

Where are the evening cicadas crying?

Over there, and over here.

★

The dusk at the pond's edge—

White gloves in a fleeting moment.

Spreading grass,

In silence I sat once more.

Though I searched for ancient words,

The distant heart remains hard to fathom.

To deem my own self regrettable,

Call not others sad.

★

A goose runs along the path.
Her shadow also runs along the path.
The goose runs across the lawn.

Her shadow also runs across the lawn.

A white goose and her shadow

Run run——run

Ah, the goose throws itself into the water!

I

Yes, yes—the flute’s heart brings no solace. No excess of song can console the flute’s heart. My friends, do not blow this flute. This flute will sound no more.
I, I am already exhausted—I have already sung my song—do not blow this flute—this flute will sound no more—where has yesterday’s song gone?
Reminiscence will not return!
Spring has come, my friends—sing your songs. Let the sorrow of your songs, your gentle songs, console my sorrow.

Where did yesterday's song go?
Reminiscence will not return!
Where did yesterday's love go?
The gentle girl will not return!
Where has she gone?
Yesterday's clouds will not return!
Ah—in what town's twilight does her gentle conversation linger? In her window's dusklight—what smile dwells within their words? I—I no longer know. Spring came. My friends—sing your songs! Let your songs' sorrow—your tender songs' sorrow—console my sorrow!

I walked today along a stream in early spring beneath the shade of lined trees. The sky was overcast. I gazed upon distant fields and a fire watchtower in the rural landscape. A thrush glinted as it flew through the forest treetops.
In the wind, the high-voltage lines hummed.
Then various sad longings caused a few tears to flow down my cheeks. I—I returned exhausted. I no longer know where memory has gone. My friends—spring has come. Sing your songs for me. Let the sorrow of your songs—your gentle songs—console my sorrow.

Swallow

“On that power line over there—those swallows are singing do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do!”

“Even though we’ve had such fine weather every day, our departure is drawing near.”
The afternoon wind chilled my chest, and these days dusk fell so swiftly—it was as if a heartrending net had been cast from the far reaches of the sky.
When I heard the evening cicadas from the twilight woods singing their shrill chorus—that relentless kanakana-kanakana—I lost all sense of where I was, and tears welled up without reason.

——It’s something someone brings up every year.
Even though there was no wind, I heard persimmons fall last night.
The once-towering cumulonimbus clouds grew smaller each day; no sooner did they peek over the mountaintop than they hurried away to vanish somewhere.

“I saw lightning last night.”
“Have you ever seen lightning?”
“That must be what chills the wind and fields so without their knowing.”
“I saw this too back then—but even at night, the sky still has clouds, you know.”

“Even though it was such a tiny egg, you’ve become quite knowledgeable, haven’t you?”

Come now, everyone—sleep deeply from early night without dreams, then with joyful morning hearts spend the day courageously playing through the wind. For the journey home was long indeed.

I wonder if this means returning—since around last year, I've somehow become unable to understand. For after crossing the sea so many times, I have lost all memory of which country I was born in.

I do hope the sea this year doesn't suddenly change its skies and turn rough.

How vast is the sea—but perhaps rivers are longer?

——What am I to do if I grow weary upon the sea? Is the sea nothing but water? And just like the sky, there's nowhere to rest—even when strong winds blow from the sides or front.

——If I were to grow tired, gradually fall behind everyone, and end up all alone—how terribly sad and lonely that would be.

Ah, no—there's no need to worry.
There's nothing at all to worry about.
Those who do not yet know the sea cross it without a second thought.
That the sea truly seems vast—it is not you yet.
To be left alone upon the sea—that will not be you all...
But there's nothing at all to worry about.
Why must things that happen through no fault of ours—when we live each day in such joy—be so unbearably sad?
Looking back, whenever nature has done such things, they've always turned out quite different from the worries we'd harbored beforehand.
Ah, even were I to find myself alone upon the sea...

Deer

Dusk. The hunt's quarry descended the mountain pass.
Five or six hunters; six or seven dogs.
Against the sky path—whose color had changed completely without notice—behind the descending procession floated the white moon that had been adrift since midday.

Though it was winter, camellias bloomed unseen by human eyes here and there; summer citrus and pomelos stood in the fields, their branches resting under clusters of green fruit. After momentarily feeling the cold of the metal fittings on the wall-mounted postbox at this remote village post office along the distant highway—and then leaving that place—I encountered three deer from today's quarry passing before me.

Bound to poles and being carried along, these noble mountain quarry resembled demure princes from tragic fairy tales; though no visible bullet wounds marred them—their antlered necks caught at awkward angles, backs rounded and swaying—they took on the appearance of gentle beasts sitting in peculiar cross-legged postures.

The fur, having lost its vitality and grown slightly disheveled, remained damp from the profound shadows and chill air of that forested valley hidden deep within the mountains.

“Well, they’ve caught some.”

“Nah, wasn’t much—just three.”

“How’s it looking this year?”

“They’re here, sure enough... but...”

“We let a lot get away today.”

A lonely wind was blowing.

That night, I went to visit that woman novelist who had come to this village.
“Maeterlinck’s ‘Silence’ feels somehow dreadful and unpleasant, don’t you think?—” While saying this, I moved aside the mirror stand on the desk and carefully drew her eyebrows.
Then she took out small items from the mirror stand’s drawer—“This is night-green powder,” “This is Delica Brow,” “And this one”—removing lids as she showed me these gentle pigments.
Then suddenly I too spoke of that lingering memory from dusk—the story of the unfortunate prince being carried along the highway.

“Oh my, I truly want a rifle now.”

――…………

“Hey, wouldn’t you like a rifle?”

“Yes… I want a rifle too.”

A lonely wind was blowing.
I suddenly felt like returning to the side of someone far away.

Noon

The heart of parting paradoxically resembled a lovers' tryst—hurried, faintly bitter.
Those who departed bustled about gathering their makeshift courage, while in the brief moments when those left behind helplessly let their cigarettes smolder, they suddenly glimpsed the folly of their existence.

The stagecoach carrying her traveled straight toward the distant reaches of the landscape along with her small hand luggage and two cloth bundles. Dappled sunlight streamed through its pale blue curtains with a soft rustle, while within, the horseshoes glimmered like darting ayu fish. Suddenly, it seemed as though everyone—the driver, the horses—shared a fate as fleeting as that of ephemeral birds. Farewell, farewell—the light blue window of her room remained quietly open.

Along the riverbed, on the highway through fields lined with trees, the carriage vanished into the distant mountain folds. And soon it would cross that white bridge invisible from here, its planks resounding cheerfully as it raced through the wind. All was a clear blue noon. And before me, a line of white bantams walked along the stone wall. Ah, time is so clearly visible! I felt forlorn and bought a red apple.

MEMOIRE

Sister perished in the autumn winds.
The white bones shattered once more upon the long bamboo chopsticks.
The hearth was warm.
Once again, autumn winds swirled through the air.
I licked the child's cheek.
I set out on my journey.
Even the rare letters from my lover had ceased to arrive.

The sea was clear.
The sky was blue too.
I roamed the coast.
Around that time, I was reading Aristotle.
A warship was anchored offshore.
In the evening, a trumpet was heard.
Another light was lit.
There was a festival on the mountain summit.
I walked far through the rice fields.
I climbed the old, long stone steps through the forest.
It was a tall mountain.
I poured sake.

Enfancefinie

Far out at sea, an island… A camellia flower fell in the rain.
Spring in the cage, spring in the cage where no birds dwell.

All the promises were broken now.

In the sea clouds are reflected, now—in the clouds, the Earth is reflected now.

In the sky there are stairs now.

Today the flag of memory falls, and like a great river, I shall part from people.
On the floor my footprints, on the footprints faint dust…… Ah, pitiful me.

I—come now, I—I shall set out on a distant journey.

Ave Maria

Reflected in the mirror was this new summer hat.
In the woods, cicadas were singing.
I sat down in the chair.
My shoes were new.
The sea was waiting for me.

I will board the train when night comes.

I will cross the mountains when day breaks.

What will I see?

And what will I think.

Truly, where am I going.

A dahlia bloomed at the window.
A butterfly enters through the window.
The clouds I watch—high clouds.

Clouds are carried by the wind.

I am sent forth by the seasons,

I call the dog.
I whistle and call to the dog sleeping in the shade of the trees.
I grasp the dog's paw.
Jackie, Buburu.—Oh my, cicadas are singing everywhere here.

I hastily make the sign of the cross,

In the depths of the path, within the hollow piled with fallen leaves.

Ave Maria, Holy Mary,

When night comes I will board the train,
Where am I going?

My handkerchief is new.
And my tears are already old.

――Will there never be a day we meet again?

――There will likely never be a day we meet again.

And if I set out on a journey, I will see only strangers and hear the sound of an unfamiliar sea.
And then I will likely never meet anyone again.

Pheasant

To Anzai Fuyue

On the mountainside, the trunk of a Japanese horse chestnut was white.
A flock of crows alighted on the miscanthus field.
A crow saw me.
I gazed at the row of utility poles thinly crossing the distant mountains.
I hid myself in the mountain folds.

The path followed the river; in sunlit spots prone to shade, wagtails flitted by trailing pale yellow.

The red aodake snake rustled through dead leaves on its carefree wanderings.

In the dusk, I purchased a pheasant.
When night fell, I shut the window overlooking the river.
I poured sake.
The sound of water receded from the window.

Upon the vermilion-lacquered dining table, I let fall a single pellet of buckshot.

Chrysanthemum.

To Kitagawa Fuyuhiko

Flowers alone in this world are beautiful to me.

The purity of me sitting by the window in a fleeting moment.

My knee.
My limbs.
(An airplane crosses over the forest.)

—And then my secret.

My purity in a certain moment wrapped in secret petals.

Clouds drifted over me.
I am happy.
I am not sad.

However, once again before long, sadness would likely return to me.

I had no means to prevent my own sadness.

My worries have no reason.—I know that.
Flowers alone in this world are beautiful to me.

In November's Field of Vision

The little ethical bird falls having entrusted its life to the arrow of ethics.
That flat spin endured across the landscape!

The small bird cries out.
No, no, no.
I do not acknowledge the blood falling from me as my own blood.
No!

Yet O little ethical bird that falls entrusting your life to the arrow of ethics!

★

The clouds proclaimed to me:
"Behold!
Behold how I am that which ever transforms, that which flies away!"
I negated myself.
Truly from my destiny did I thus journey through my life, ceaselessly banishing myself from my own form.
No!
……No!……

To this I responded: "You build through pursuit, and through building, you move."
Ah, you worthy of envy—possessors of wisdom and freedom!
Yet nevertheless—O you who proclaim through that destiny! O traveler ever shadowed by defeat!

I and Snow

What compels me still to whistle today?

The old allure once again beckoned me.
I put on my boots and took down the gun from the wall.
I left the abode.
Meanwhile, the snow fell and piled up—slight yet dazzling—through the already late afternoon.
The dog, however, reconsidered and was leashed again.
"I will go alone."
And it was the snow—from that light fabric swirling and weaving—that showed me the path.
I followed it—or rather, hastened to comply.

I entered the forest.
Suddenly, the sound of a dead branch falling followed by the flapping of a bird’s wings.
The verticality of the trees overlapped endlessly, concealing one another, and this coldly sighing atmosphere dominated me.
Something was lost from me.
(Here, there was life but no lamplight.) I preferred it that way.
Probably because I was tired.

Before long, the sunset sky came into view, and the forest ended.
There appeared ripples of time.
I quietly loaded the firearm.
(Somewhere snow fell.) I raised my forehead, tilted back the deeply shadowed hat brim, and pressed my shoulder firmly against the trees.
The firing range was visually measured, and my conjecture settled on an indisputable point.
The metal fitting at the stock's end seeped cold into my shoulder.
I held my breath.
Within the tension lingered a steely weariness.
And when only a faint final moment remained from the lightly lingering trigger finger—yes—the prey appeared there.
(And yet in this moment of clairvoyance, how utterly ignorant I must have been!) The prey's gait was scrutinized; the trigger fell.
Mud mingled with shallow snow sent up spray.
Sulfur's scent drifted.
This swift olfactory present seemed like memory—some vague distant past.

I advanced toward the prey.
However, that too was not the hunter’s joy.
The prey—a wild boar—lay still robust, its form darkened by dusk.
Beneath it, the flowing blood was absorbed into the mud.
Suddenly, I was compelled to look back over my shoulder.
And then I understood everything!

In the shadow of the trees where I had stood, there now appeared another figure identical to myself—who, separating me from a point of his conjecture in the twilight, tilted back the low-drawn brim of his sniper’s hat, raised the collar of his coat like mine, and already enclosed me within his breath-held sights.

"Enough—no more!
I shall fall!
It’s exactly like being inside some novel…"

At once, I was struck down sideways.
The gunshot roared……in memory’s distant echo.

Yet consciousness returned to me once again.
With effort, I forced my eyes open wide.
In vision’s final impression—as if seeing myself there—I stared at the twilight’s clouded sky.
I tried to sustain that gaze.
But soon my eyelids fell.
Wounded, I lay collapsed upon my prey.
(That sniper must be approaching me now.
He matched me in every particular.) And the beast beneath me—now a corpse bristling with spines—held a gentle allure as I slipped into anesthesia’s embrace.
At that moment, I truly heard it:
From the corpse below me—or rather, from this still life identical to myself—a voice whispered within, "Me and snow…"

Nostalgia

Butterfly-like my nostalgia!…
A few butterflies crossed over hedges and glimpsed the sea at an afternoon street corner...
I listened to the sea at the wall….
I closed the book.
I leaned against the wall.
In the next room, two o'clock struck.
"Sea, O distant sea!
I committed these words to paper.—O Sea—in the script we use, within you lies mother.
"And Mother—in the French tongue, within you lies the sea."

Lion

He, the lion, saw—at the end of a comfortable nap—bathed there in the abyssal afternoon, he was a white porcelain dish floating up like the moon—between faintly opened eyelashes, this unbreakable covenant of recognition filled with stench, this space of iron bars with arms crossed upon a concrete throne, his kingdom of captivity, that now at last grew clear before him—the long-familiar cage—he saw it all.
...dazzling with precision, the world's most nimble, most unrestrained small angel, fluttering its wings as it drifted past.
...The butterfly—fluttering lightly from the sea of shadows to sunlit deserts, from sunlit shores back to shadowed waters below—left behind faintly glimmering carvings of seasons and light in reality’s interstices as it wandered from one moment to the next, one chance encounter to another, until finally visiting even a corner of his cage.

He blinked.
Bringing his eyes together along the bridge of his nose, he raised his neck—its mane ablaze like sunflowers lashed by waves—drew his forelimbs close, and stood up with a mighty and imposing posture.
He pressed close to the iron bars.
But at that moment, he suddenly felt an inexplicable suspicion toward the excessive slowness of his own movements.
The butterfly had long since vanished into a corner of the sky, its free flight brushing past.
Propelled by his hindquarters urging movement, he twisted his forequarters swiftly to one side.
With a heavy, habitual gait, he began walking along the cage.
What was truly a minuscule territory—no more than a single leap—stretched into infinite distance through lines of submission and weariness crisscrossing there, and thus he embarked on a half-day’s journey.
Lazily hanging his regal head while enduring the profound sensation welling in his thick paw pads, he thought:
Ah, that which flashed in his vision—that visitor who fell through the iron bars and swiftly flew away—what was that flower-like instant?
That lucid revelation which had invigorated his very life; that radiant emotion which crossed the clear sky only to vanish—how now could he decipher this mystery?
Involuntarily—realizing the impotence of his contemplation—he yearned for miracles' cyclical return.
People who had stopped before the cage watched his melancholy pacing and whispered among themselves:
"He’s moving about quite vigorously… If one met such a creature in the mountains… What a magnificent mane…"
At this moment, he—the lion—lowered his gaze to the floor and perceived yet another new enemy: doubt's simplest yet most insolent protest.
He dug his claws into the floor and scratched.
He slammed the floor.
Illusion!
Was it illusion?
He doubted his own eyes.

Was it truly an illusion?
He fiercely raised his head.
He felt a blazing vortex swirling about his mane.
Driven by an irrepressible surge of frustration, he hurled himself at the crowd observing his movements with curious eyes—roaring, challenging them to battle.
Quivering under a spirit swelling to the point of anguish, he tautened his skin, tensed his tendons, made his tail into a spear, warped the thousand-pound resilience in his limbs, and with a roar, sharply poised himself for combat.
The crowd beyond the bars—some feigned terror, lifting sleeves to hypocritical brows; others hastily countered by thrusting out optimistic bellies.
And behold—ah! But was this roaring lion here truly an embodied thought, a breathing bellows?
How much more sorrowful was the actual truth?
At that very moment, from within the lion's own brain matter, that solitary butterfly once again took swift flight toward heaven's distant edge!

Pan

Taking Pan with me, taking my beloved dog Panza with me

I went to the sea on a cloudy day.

Pan, my short-legged Sancho Panza.

“What’s wrong? Why are you sneezing so much?”

“Pan, this is the sea.”

“Does the sea bring you joy, or pity?”

“Pan, do I resemble the sea?”

“If you think so, sneeze once more.”

Pan went over there, shook his head, and sneezed.

From the nursing home in the grove came the asthmatic radio’s wheezing discourse.

I stood on the cliff, gazing vacantly like a sentry.

O ancient little sea—men cast themselves into you, I gaze upon you.
Will recollection return from between cloud and cloud?

All is likely lost now, and thus my songs have dried up.

A steamship glides away, a steamship flows away.

Showing its stern, it resembles my hat.

I adjust my hat deeply.

“Let’s go back, Pan.”

“My Sancho Panza—with those short legs of yours, walk more nobly.”

“That’s right—raise your head, raise your tail too.”

The clumsy crab slipped and fell from the canal sluice gate.

“I liked the sound of that water—don’t be angry, Pan. That was criticism.”