Pathway to Japanese Literature

Preface to One Who Comes from the Stars

These days, poetry comes to me only in scattered drops.
Unlike before, I can no longer write so easily—but when I do write, it flows out smoothly.
That might be the true essence of poetry.
It has been ten years since I began writing poetry, yet I feel I am merely rewriting old pieces from time to time.
Yet from another perspective—even when writing one thing—considering that I write it with a fundamentally different feeling; neither through form nor outline, but firmly from the heart’s core—I also feel I am writing myself.

For this reason, rather than making special efforts to compose or intellectualize, I write with my usual fluidity.
Since even this comes to me only very rarely, this collection may count as something unusual among my works.
What we call poetry does not fundamentally transform itself—the heart awakened in one place still settles quietly into that same place, just as it did in former days.
Thus when people speak of change or its absence, they grasp not truth itself but merely formalities—outlines or line arrangements on the page.

As for matters like rhythm, they absolutely cannot exist on the page.
In the gentle undulations of content and the poem's emotional state lies the true rhythm.
It does not lie in form or the sequence of characters.
At least in first-rate poetry, there are good aspects that the usual colorblindness of rhythm theorists cannot touch.
Facing a vague, beautiful visage—without any particular reason, there exists that beauty which one simply feels seeping in, ever so gently.
It can never be expressed in words—not eyes or mouth, nor skin—there exists a certain unified, mysterious beauty.
Poetry too must have its merits in such aspects.
If we consider all its parts—the delicacy of skin, the smoothness of eyes, the rich points of flesh placement—these can likely be individually identified; but that vague, indescribable beauty gathered from them should reside over the entirety itself.
My poetry still holds somewhat childlike concepts that seem to have emanated from such expressions.
However, whether such fine qualities truly exist within my poetry is highly doubtful; still, I wish to state here that my sensibilities do indeed lean toward such tendencies.

Taishō 11, January 21, at Tabata

Murō Saisei

the scene of my garden

straw

From within the straw

A scarlet flower burst forth.

The straw was dry, yellow, and soft—and warm.

Flowers and leaves and buds faced the winter day.

The soil lay frozen.

The flower that had burst forth burned scarlet.

It held a joyful color.

A corner of the heavens

You have beautiful hands,
supple with dimples rising.
With those beautiful hands,
you polish your white knees and skin.
Never tiring,
you bathe untouched by any hand.
Yet you speak with no one.

In the depths of my weary eyes,
you smile without cease.
Through my sullen days,
my disagreeable days,
I watch your bathing.
You shine untiring.

Here and there.

Here and there in the mountain valleys.

Red-sleeved country women.

They were working the fields forlornly.

Among them were those who had stopped working to gaze this way.

Vacantly, peacefully,

The carriage was moving along the gentle mountain path
The carriage was clattering and swaying.

People were sleeping

A languid warmth filled the air.

Rape blossoms. Peach grove.

Gentle mountain stream

Horsefly

A horsefly tried to stand still, fluttering his thin, twisted wings.

“Can you stand?”

Someone called out from the dry soil above.
He tried to respond immediately, but the effort he’d put into his wings left him unable to make a sound.

At the hem of hushed withered grass, all things strained upward in silence only to fall utterly still within the warm sunlight.

The horsefly fluttered its wingtips with all its strength, straining to catch the faintly cold breeze. Wings still twisted like morning glory buds—delicate yet gradually loosening.

He gazed transfixed at the vibrant green of new leaves battling within the dazzling light. Never before had he seen such a green. A color first witnessed since birth, yet strangely he felt his eyes had once held such a hint before. Now barely a memory—something he had vaguely pieced together.

He looked back, but not a single creature resembling himself stood there.
He even wondered if he might be utterly alone.
The thicket of dead grass on the large embankment seethed upward with a blazing heat from both the sky above and the earth below, drifting through the surrounding air.

Right nearby flowed an immense current, its deep blue waves resounding.
At minimum, the wind coming from there chilled sharply, stroking the base of his wings so harshly it hurt as it passed.

Each time a breeze came, its stirring would gradually undo the twists in his wings, and he would try to quietly transfer onto the wind's current.
Yet his legs clung stubbornly to the dead grass stems—if he released them, he would surely fall—and thus he couldn't rise with the wind.
As he repeated this motion, the ground a foot below—which had felt so perilous moments before—now seemed neither dizzying nor particularly dangerous should he fall.

The hole it had crawled out of looked small and meager.
The horsefly found today oddly amusing and smiled quietly.

“Can you stand?”

Such a voice whispered gently again from among the dead grass.

“Mm.”

He had, for the first time, given voice and tried to answer someone.
But still, he could find nothing at all in any direction.
The vast embankment stretched long and tea-brown, its interior tinged with a faint bluish hue.

He had not been serious at that moment—merely moving his wings—yet strangely, his body abruptly lightened, allowing him to ride upon the wind.
And he landed on the tip of a grass stalk with withered ears about five inches ahead.
At that moment, for the first time, the horsefly joyfully looked back at his own wings now fully spread out.

“Can you stand?”

Such a voice arose around him for the third time.
Unconsciously, the horsefly raised his wings once more.
The golden abdomen gradually deepened in hue.
Then he soared about two feet into the air.
Everything was filled with smooth, warm air that even carried a fragrant scent.
His entire body—charged with new vitality and strength—hovered intently in place.

In that quiet air, he listened contentedly to the ceaseless buzzing of his own wings.
When his eyes caught part of the embankment directly below, he had already stopped thinking about the hole he’d emerged from.

The horsefly was happy.
The air he had thought heavy now filled his surroundings boundlessly as if embracing his soft wings, with even the faintest breeze holding no chill.
He had no intention of going anywhere, yet felt he could go anywhere.

"I've gradually become able to fly.
I can go anywhere."

With that thought, he flew straight ahead.
He looked down contentedly at the undulating small hills and hollows.
Then he ventured out to Nichinan, where the bluishness seemed poised to completely envelop the dead grass, and alighted beneath a beautiful tree like a palace.
When he heard the voice ask “Can you stand?” for the fourth time, his wings were already flashing freely through the air with a glossy, celluloid-like light.

He gradually came to realize that the voice asking "Can you stand?" had lingered in his mind since long before. He thought that even in his ancestors' time, such a voice must have arisen. When he considered this, the blue river waves, the long embankment, the bluish grassland, and the beautiful trees—all seemed as though he had beheld them once before.

Bzzz bzzz bzzz... The horsefly hurried through the pouring light.
Though he had no aim, he pressed onward toward the bright sunlight, as far as his new wings could carry him.

Badger.

In front of the desk, darkly murky—
When I sat writing like a badger,
In the corner of the tatami room sat another writing too—
A fellow like me, like a badger,
Hunched over the desk
With lips sealed tight as if holding breath,
Carving words as I wrote.

In truth, this being just like me—
Facing my direction—
If I moved,
That one moved;
When I sighed,
That one sighed 'ahh' too.

Whenever I sensed its presence—
To no one in particular—
It shifted faintly on its own.

That thing too smiled like soot.

The Scene of My Garden

An iris floated and swayed like a boat.

A shadow was reflected in the water basin.

The surrounding area was lawn grass.

It was delicate Korean lawn grass of a vivid green.

A short distance away stood a Chinese lion statue of Korean roof tiles,

still moss-covered,

being struck by blue rain.

I want one old stone lantern.

Moss-covered,

I want to solidly place a purely Japanese-style stone lantern in harmony with ancient soil.

In the shade of maple and apricot—

There lies an area wrapped in deepest green,

where rain and dew fall

as if staining the stones with bluish hues.

Old soil and stones

harmonize with my Japanese-style room.

Star Cluster

Between the clouds,
a star shining solitary, far away,
that star vanishes,
a mysterious star that vanishes and reappears,
light that contracts and stretches,
between the clouds, it flickers.

When I peered out every night from here,
over there too they were peering every night.
When I peered for a long time,
the star grew ever more keenly sharp—
something like a telephone between the stars
had many strands spanned
stretching threads
down to me in the mortal world
lonely voices came falling down.
Aogutani

There was an old Aogutani bowl.
At its bottom water had pooled.
When I held it, it wasn't cold.
I felt as though I were holding a warm bird.

Always, always

I gazed at it cheerfully.
When I had upset my family members,
when I was exhausted from work,
or when I heard unpleasant things in the world,
I gazed sadly after cursing someone or such.

Cockscomb Flower

When autumn came, the cockscombs turned red.

Each year I would gaze at them anew.

The cockscomb was an herb worthy of gracing royal palaces.

About ten stalks of those cockscombs

Grew wild along the hedge.

In passing, seeing it gave me a pleasant sensation.

Winter Rain

The day turned into a lonely winter rain.

Now I rested my chin on the desk,

thinking the same thoughts repeatedly -

the road soaked by rain,

the lamplight's reflection cast there among such things.

That wasn't why it felt lonely.

But how was I to spend such a rainy day?

Whether time could pass pleasantly -

these were the matters I pondered,

weighing one option against another.

Rain turns gloomy when winter comes.

In my room, unbeknownst to me,

A temple-like scent and stillness always came.

I was within that atmosphere.
I smoked tobacco through a long pipe.
None of these brought any pleasure whatsoever.
Struggling with my thoughts,
all I did was vigorously stoke the fire.
The shadow of flames lingered in my eyes—
something no one ever noticed,
something that vanished completely on its own terms.

Thus, the day ended in winter rain.

The long rain of tomorrow would likely come again.

Insect

Where did you come from

I have never seen your face.

I have never even smelled such a scent.

You are a rare guest.

You resemble an insect.

Since last night, you have been staying in the house.

You have wings.
I don’t know when you will take wing and leave.

Voices

One evening

While I was gazing at the stars,

Somewhere, a voice spoke.

It's an unfamiliar voice.

The neighbor is already asleep.

Even though it's utterly silent,

The voices showed no sign of ceasing.

Moss.

Moss grew blue.

There, sunlight glided quietly.

Sunlight cast its shadow.

Crawling like an insect pin,

I watered the moss.

From behind me, dusk began to fall.

Two children.

There were two children.

Both were noisily playing.

One scratched the other's face.

The other one scratched back without a word.

The two of them grappled,

Until finally they burst into tears.

The next time I saw them, both of them

Had stopped crying as if nothing happened,

Were playing by piling stones on the ground.

Then they began fighting again.

Again they were completely over it.

After the Rain

A puddle formed.

Tree leaves were reflected.

A wet insect crawled.

The sunlight came glittering down.

In my quiet house, a bright voice suddenly began to ring out today.

Somewhere, someone was closing the storm shutters.

The puddle was shallow,

The shadow was deep; it filled the entire sky with its reflection.

Town and Home

After staying shut in my room for about ten days,
I grew weary of looking at the blue trees.
Somehow I felt myself growing thinner.
Day after day of gazing.
And so I went out into town.
When I saw women walking beneath willow branches,
I felt my body filling out slightly.
Their gaudy overgarments glowed,
a pure delight to behold.

Two Minds

I want to be kind to everyone

I want to become able to fight with anyone

Such two minds

They are always coming and going within my heart

In their deepest depths they rarely fall behind

I feel certain I could write something remarkable.

That alone pulses without cease.

They whisper my essential truth between themselves.

Sea

When the large banana plant's broad leaves swayed,

A large fish or something—
I felt as though it was swimming.

Especially in the evenings, when the dusky blue air lay heavy,

Like the sea's depths,
whether trees or underbrush,
they all swayed as if in waves.
The finer the leaves,
the more they seemed to tremble within them.
I peered there from the window.

In the calm sea.

The sea was filled with sea grasses.

A moonlit night fell.

The blueness deepened further,

stretching all the way to the sky.

In profound stillness,

only the window remained open.

City River

City River

The rain was quietly pouring down.

The river's surface became a forest,

the rain making fine sounds.

From time to time, a tram cast its shadow upon the murky surface as it passed by.

Numerous cargo boats were moored.

The boats appeared to be moving,

yet remained tethered as they were,

beaten by the rain.

From the eaves of the roof rose a single wisp of smoke.

From the window, a child was watching the tram on the bridge.
The child watched intently for a long time.
The figures of all passersby were reflected on the water’s surface,
They quietly faded away.

The smoke was still rising.
A woman who appeared to be the child’s mother
was washing a bundle of green onions.
In the utterly silent rain, everything became shadows of the bridge.

Mount Fuji

The beautiful sun came out on a clear day after snow.

The deep blue of the sky on a snowy day.

And the warmth.

As I walked toward the railway embankment,

The white Mount Fuji was visible.

Between the roofs of houses and a sparse grove.

Beneath the sparse grove lay railway tracks.

The Yamanote Line train

Two or so had just passed by.

I gazed at Fuji.

Fuji twinkled with eyes full of childlike curiosity.

I had often passed beneath you

from the soot-stained, grimy train window.

The first time I saw you was thirteen years ago.

With frozen hands,

I clutched the window frame with a grating scrape.

I was helplessly returning to the country.

Chased by cold and hunger at the window's icy edge,

I scraped the glass door with a grating rasp.

Yes—you do possess a beautiful form.

Your peace defies complete understanding.

But now that I—

Now I may contemplate your shape at leisure.

Because my life has settled here in Tokyo.

Road: Part One

I would gaze at the purple-tinged cherry branches over a house’s fence as I passed by each day, sometimes looking at them sorrowfully. Every day the wind blew fiercely with a cold resonance that never grew warm. The purple-tinged cherry branches remained gnarled and stiff.

Road: Part Two

From the brown wooden fence, a piano was playing.

A wet diaper hangs like a flag.

There, the piano rang out ever more beautifully.

Before the gate
the greengrocer had just spilled and left
scraps of greens and scallions
that had been left untouched for days.

A Medley of Urban Scenes

When year-end approached, the red, meticulously formed fruits of Nanten, Senryō, Manryōō, Umemodoki, and such began to gleam with a glossy sheen.
In shop display windows, shawls of every conceivable kind—white as a cat’s fur, blue, crimson, black, purple, vertical stripes, checkerboards, lattice patterns—fluttered limply at collars, sleekly caressing slender chins; merely walking past outside, they clung vexingly to one’s gaze.
Those emaciated as salmon, others bloated like blowfish; some crimson as sea bream or red gurnard; bug-eyed ones like telescope goldfish; Westerner-like figures—they wove through the town’s flags, Christmas trees, and display windows like fabric threads. All shifted and tangled, jumbling into chaos: faces overlapping faces, overlapping again before parting, endlessly alluring in their endless succession.

Horse-drawn carriages, rickshaws, trams, automobiles; tonkatsu, stew, perfume, fertilizer, dust, windswept drafts, stars, starry skies—against the backdrop of all these alluring things, they raced and wafted in threefold, fourfold layers.
Just as there was a greengrocer near the café, a tie shop adjoined the fabric store; just as behind someone wrapped in a crimson shawl stood a man clamped in a black soft hat; just as coffee followed tonkatsu; just as a Western woman bloated like a lantern plant was trailed by a penguin-like man—so many existences, so many existences—

When year’s end truly arrived, cardboard and nasal tissues and parcel wrappings and newspapers and ceremonial cords and shoji papers gave off their scent everywhere; faces freshly shaven like new geta wood and heads like traditional Todon hats and modernists—all passed by in endless dizzying succession.
The only constant was the Sandwich Man, who would walk two steps, stop for three, then walk three more while coughing feebly.
With a hacking cough that seemed to reverberate from the depths of his lungs, he would walk two or three steps at a time.
Weather-beaten utility poles stood here and there; an emaciated dog tottered about; and something that could be neither smoke nor mist crept mournfully along the rows of low houses—all as was customary.

He was emaciated like a street tree and constantly tottered about. Moreover, people’s wallets were as disheveled as wastepaper baskets, but at the bottom of his grimy, striped cloth pouch clung a single twenty-sen bill—resembling a mandarin peel, its torn edge mended and stained with oil. Moreover, what he occasionally sang was a curious chapter from the opera *“Love is Gentle”*—how or where he had memorized it remained a mystery. With his stubbly beard framing his mouth, he ceaselessly hummed the same tune in an exceedingly low voice, taking one step only to halt after two, wandering back and forth along the same road.

Trams and automobiles and penguin-like men and tonkatsu and curio shops and cafés were all jumbled together in chaotic disarray throughout the town. Yet the Sandwich Man alone trudged steadily between the separate roadway and pedestrian path, singing the melancholy "Love is Gentle" song. And yet it was a song that no one had ever clearly heard, nor did even he himself understand. When I suddenly heard it in passing, I stood there dazed in the sandy December dust, startled; then, in the same manner as the old man, I unconsciously hummed that song and hurriedly began to walk as if someone had scolded me.

The curious thing was how December sunlight could still radiate warmth through scarves despite containing winter’s bleak ashen chill within its hue. There were hearts grown worldly through years of scarf-wearing; an old man shriveled by cold like a turtle shuffling between sunlit patches while carrying pots of daffodils and adonis; the beauty of a woman with reddened hands bared as she scrubbed laundry—the freshness of sunlit water, the delightful splish-splash.

The harmony of straw mats that had been laid along the rough suburban roads and their fences; a cherry tree that stood in such places, tinged faintly purple, misted with moisture, its form stretching cleanly into the blue sky; Yamanote trams visible through such fences; newly built houses that gleamed; gardens encircled by winter chrysanthemums; a sudden warmth carrying the aroma of roasted sweet potatoes that drifted over—and just when one thought this, wondering from where even such wretched paths had emerged, there sometimes appeared a splendidly plump woman: red gloves and blue shawl, her body wrapped in vexingly swirling-patterned meisen silk, swaying unsteadily like a dog as she emerged.
Everything about her was red—everything—a woman whose hands and feet seemed to smile.

As the shadows of drying tabi socks shifted across my house, the dried cod curled backward at their edges; the pitch-black winter horsefly that had been dancing its brush-like tail tip vanished somewhere by then, leaving only the rustling evening wind through bamboo grass to freeze solid.
And then, the nightly cold-exposed moon—sharply honed—cast its light.

Especially when setting out from the rural outskirts of Tabata, one first encountered a place like Dōzaka—a town lined with shops of salmon, herring, and cod roe.
People in moth-like cloaks, government clerks in suits with frayed elbows; here too were tonkatsu shops and bookbinders and antique dealers and those wrapped in the usual blue and crimson shawls now faded—all jumbled together in chaotic disarray.
The canal alone flowed downstream as the Aizome River, but radish and scallion scraps had grown quite scarce lately, and over their gurgling flow, the cold December moon shone gently night after night.

Yet the passersby’s breath hung white and gentle, often fluttering like butterflies beside the lone magazine shop’s garish new releases.
Exhaling white breath in the backlight of gas and electric lights, it looked unmistakably like December.

Dōzaka is the entrance to Tabata.
As bustling as a festival procession, it was crowded with the scent of kadomatsu... and there steamed the usual salmon, cod roe, and modern fare.—

Visiting someone
Visiting someone, I walked through Asakusa’s backstreets.
Temples stood adjacent to each other,
The tree peered down over the town from its garden.

On the sunlit ground
Children were playing.
The red cloth of that kimono stood out conspicuously.
The backstreets were lonely.

Circling the large temple again and again—
Even as I went back and forth along the same alley,
I couldn’t find the house of the person I was seeking.
It remained mysteriously elusive.
Every house had women and children.
The alleys stretched on, lined with nothing but shabby houses.
“There’s no such house here,” they said,
without even glancing at my utterly distraught face—
some doing laundry,
some sweeping evening soil,
others seductively plucking shamisen strings.
And so I moved once more from alley to alley into the backstreets—

I emerged before the gate of the original grand temple.
My head grew weary,
my heart grew impatient.
When I looked, from this unexpected temple emerged a beautiful girl in arrow-feather-patterned meisen silk—
she appeared abruptly like a mandarin duck floating on water.
The tree peered out from the temple garden.
Disheartened, I began to turn back—
the park’s band and clamor descended upon this lonely backstreet.

Stopping my feet, I listened intently to the sound.

it was coming from very nearby.

When I emerged back onto the main avenue,
the avenue was crowded due to railway construction.

I boarded the streetcar on impulse.
Remembering the mysteriously quiet town I had just walked through,
alone, I closed my eyes and let myself be jostled along.
Therefore, winter days tend to end early.

Eternity

Today, for the first time, I opened the shoji screen.

I became familiar with the evening garden.

It wasn't particularly cold.

The evening light approached the side of the desk.

Within it, I was reading a book.

I felt a nostalgic air of eternity.

I felt deeply the subtlety of things in transition.

In the light of the setting sun,

the evening sun was casting its glow over the one-sided town,

flies swarmed in multitudes,

golden waves rippled.

In that heat, I stood motionless, gazing.

Suddenly I remembered something—the figure sitting there covered in flies under the eaves of a filthy town. I remembered being subjected to that scorching western sun. A face stained with its color still stares at me sadly now.

Nest

A Woodblock Print of Hell

In the streetcar
I could no longer endure it.
I kept my eyes cast downward.
Even when I resolved not to look,
Even when I restrained myself,
I inevitably ended up looking anyway.
A girl of about seventeen
had an ugly black birthmark conspicuously standing out on her left cheek.
With gentle eyes
that were double-lidded and pale in color,
holding the strap with her left hand,
using school supplies
to cover that cheek,
she tried her utmost not to be seen by others.
Her mind maintained not the slightest lapse in vigilance.
Though her eyes were gentle,
she remained rigidly tense.

The right cheek was white and beautiful.
Compared to the left one, it was as beautiful as heaven.
Yet the left cheek was dark, sagging toward the ground.
I tried not to look.
The more I resisted, the more intently I peered.

In the streetcar.

I could no longer endure and
I turned toward the window.
I tried to forget it as much as I could.

I tried not to look.

A temple within Asakusa Park

Along the park’s pond,

Toward the street where there were an insectarium and aquarium

I didn't know what temple it was, but there stood a stone wall—thick with deep green shadows and settled in gloomy silence. Its interior held such profound quiet that it felt like a nunnery. Only this temple, wedged between movie theaters, food stalls, and street vendors, seemed entirely untouched by the park's atmosphere. It reminded me of the convent where Jean Valjean took in Cosette. The moss-cloaked stone wall glowed vivid green. Each time I passed it, some fantasy would stir within me—like a lizard's instinct.

I want to slip over the stone wall

Beyond the wall, I thought there might be something like a nun.
Even without that notion, I felt as if some special woman was there.

City Dust

In passing,

I thought I recognized someone,

but couldn't quite remember who.

It felt like someone I'd watched for ten or twenty years,

yet also not quite.

As if among the dead there'd been someone like that.

Come to think of it, they resembled someone.

A pale cheek stood out sharply,

looking just like a skinned fish ready to eat.

But I still couldn't recall.
It happened all too often.

It was a face that would soon be forgotten again.

Rust

Everyone parted.

Once you part ways completely—it’s nothing.

On a bench with blue-green moss

While talking like this, the two parted.

From there stretched a flight of steps.

The road narrowed into a single path, and they encountered each other once more.

Once you part ways completely—it’s nothing.

The two thought the same thing simultaneously.

Exchanging a brief smile

They found it unpleasant to stand there looking cold.

And they parted curtly.

Even when they were each on their own,

They didn’t feel particularly lonely.

And they returned straight home.

One took the train,

The other walked.

They walked through separate towns.

Strangely enough, both of them became sullen,

forlorn-looking.

The one on the train sat limply with their head hung down.

The other walked while

gazing at the desolate town,

the other wore a feignedly cold expression.

Neither of them met.

In their hearts, both thought that once they had parted completely, it would be nothing.

they were thinking.

Pond

I went to Asakusa for movies and shopping,

and after seeing all sorts of other things and heading back,

Why does this peculiar loneliness come over me?

Superficial diversions—

They leave you gradually lonelier afterward.

Especially married couples and such,

Exhausted and looking incomparably lonely in the world, they slumped listlessly—

I saw them returning from the park.

Behind them, as expected, stood band halls and movie theaters

Lit up like paper crafts, they stood towering.

Whether it was the water in that pond over there

Whether it was the willows or zelkova trees

Everything was covered in grime,

The water and such was muddy.

Even the scarlet and indigo carp that occasionally floated up—foully bloated—appeared like bulging, corpulent hips.

That loomed visible behind them.

That is why it feels all the more desolate.

Countryside

Insects in old hearths like those found in the countryside.

Insects that came right up to the fireside in winter
The insect
resembled an oil beetle.
It had wings like tarnished metal but did not fly.
An old man was always by the ancient hearth.

The old man spent the entire day.
He watched an insect crawling along the edge of the ancient hearth.

The brevity of winter days in the countryside
The winter sunlight barely shone through just one lattice bar at the height of the shoji screen.
The winter sunlight faded away without a sound.
Outside the window, everything was filled with snow.
There was not even a thud to be heard.
The exposed wind sharpened the snow.
Only a black insect was running around the hearth.
At times, it remained motionless.
It resembled a clockwork insect.
The thatched roof was wet, drops falling from icicles.

The drops made a low, soft sound as they trickled down.

Just when one thought they had stopped, they came trickling again.

Boredom too lay dead there.

There, for half a year, no soil could be seen.

Each house held its solitary occupant—

At times there were only pairs of elders.

Tobacco and tea and long nights and snow and death

Each spring came knocking at every household's door.

Death is in the snow.

Tea chills the elderly.

What could possibly be out there?

Tsuyuhana Mountain and snow

A wind carried the resonance of distant drums.

It merely lurked by the river between valleys, among the roadside trees of the thoroughfare.

If not for the elementary school beyond the mountain, there wasn’t a single accurate clock.

All the pillar clocks in every house were stopped.

Road

What I cannot forget is

in a grimy state

I walked squelching along the wet Asakusa road.

What business I had there—with such a base heart—

I still cannot forget how I passed by gazing diagonally over the roofs at the sunset.

The road and rows of houses from that day—

Even the faces and forms of people I don’t even remember now come floating up.

Rooftop advertisements, narrow Western-style restaurants.
Dirty dogs and ditch construction.
They came dragging back like a soiled rope.
What did I eat with my meager money?
I couldn't even remember what I'd seen.
Just sitting around a table with dull-black laborers,
crunching on something.
With gloomy resolve, I left that place first,
still walking the wet roads.
As I kept on like that,
I grew exhausted as if afflicted with beriberi, walking through mud only to stop.

Stopping and walking on, like a wretched crow I cast a darkened shadow.

Round and round I circled,
I’ve even forgotten who that woman was or where she came from.
With attractive eyes,

She leaned against the door and stared intently.
In the darkness, she was fragrant like a flower.
The road was muddy.
I wandered aimlessly through that place.
I was circling round and round that house.

I emerged in front of my house

At home, my wife was sewing.
That woman might be someone from somewhere.
She walked gracefully on slender limbs.
Preoccupied with thoughts of that woman,
as I walked absentmindedly,
there was a slope, there was a tree.
I came out onto a path where children were playing and such.

From there, I came out in front of my house.
At home, my wife was sewing.

City and Roofs

I enjoyed moving pictures and often visited Asakusa, yet whenever I idly gazed from the theater's discreet window at residential roofs or the crowded eateries and second-floor diners along the thoroughfare, from those damp roofs and roads would come a strange, indescribable haziness—making me feel as if I had once sat in those grubby restaurants there, or as if on hot days I had wearily walked along roads that would turn dusty when dry, all for some unimportant errand.

No doubt I was utterly exhausted, and the figure trudging gloomily onward would always appear when I gazed from that window while attending to minor tasks. Somehow these jumbled rows of houses and roads and carts and grubby pedestrians and ditches and willows and single-item Western restaurants clung stickily to my dim life, and whenever I passed through or gazed at such places for however long, they suddenly began to weigh me down. Still now, in those eateries reeking of gutter stench, I sometimes fancied my shabby self leaning left cheek on hand, gazing with weary eyes at shelves lined with pots, plates, and pork.

Especially when, at times in the evening light, I saw from that window the peculiarly reddish-brown hues of the lingering sunset striking diagonally across the rooftops, my mood grew increasingly gloomy, and it took quite some time to return to its former state.
Therefore, I find walking the back alleys of Asakusa detestable.
Yet I still felt compelled to pass through there, and I couldn’t help imagining my shabby, darkened shadow sinking obliquely over the muddy roads and puddles there like a caretaker.

Guest

At a certain wedding banquet

Suddenly, the surroundings grew noisy.

On the third floor of a Western restaurant.

Below the window was Kyōbashi's main street.

"A dead person has come!" someone said.

There was someone who whispered that they were right on the stairs.

At the top of the stairs

A tall, broad-backed man was standing there.

Everyone stared in surprise toward him.

The man held a cigarette between his lips.

His face bore a gloomy pallor.

They were certain he was dead.

Through their ranks the whisper passed,

That voice insinuating itself.

Behind him stood a large pot's verdant leaves,

Their mass appearing to smolder.

The man exchanged no words with anyone.

Though all were acquainted, this seemed strange.

Some among them had already begun trembling.

Next to the venue was the bride’s preparation room.
The door was locked.
When someone tried to enter, it wouldn’t open.
When they peered into that room through the opposite window,

The bride remained sitting blankly.

When everyone drew near,

The bride noticed for the first time.
But she said nothing.
Only her complexion was poor.
The man in question drank through to the final coffee of the banquet.
He slowly made his way back.

But strangely enough,
the restaurant’s bill was only for nine portions.
Had they counted that man, it would have been ten.
Yet they absolutely refused to acknowledge more than nine,
the owner had said.
That man never came again.
That’s what those from the bride’s side kept repeating.

Nest

I was sitting in a street brothel.

It was winter, and the cold was brutal,

The teacup sat frozen solid.

The woman’s skin had grown rough like hemp rope.

The customers who trampled it nightly with shoes and wooden clogs

Crowded thick at the gate.

The woman rebuilt her skin with silk and gold

She had wrapped an expensive shawl around her neck.

The deterioration of her own body was of no concern.

She used her favorite foods and extravagance

to conceal it all.

On the contrary, her body kept wearing down more and more,

until it had become full of holes like a beehive,

but she meticulously filled them with gold and silk.

I was in such a district,

sitting there both night and day,

trembling wretchedly like a starving demon.

While she removed and fitted the gold in her skin,

with that same worn-out feeling,

I had been sitting there endlessly.

The woman had changed rapidly during those times.

The former woman had gone somewhere,

the next woman soon emerged.

She covered her body in wounds.

She had become just like the previous woman.

As this cycle repeated,

I carved each of those women’s names into the pillars there

I had carved their names there.

With the seventeenth, winter came to a complete end.

When spring came,
the pillars were already covered in scratches.
I had grown weary of carving names.
I merely went to see those names.

The pillars had aged, soot-covered with cobwebs and cigarette smoke.
My nail marks were tending to fade.
I was looking up at them, but
The women did not notice any of it.
Not a single soul inquired about it.

I took a friend and went

I showed him the pillars of the houses in that district.

My friend was utterly astonished and gazed at the numerous women’s names.

But since there wasn’t a single woman he knew among them,

he seemed uninterested.

Finally, I guided him to the terrifying injection room and showed it to him.

There were all kinds of medicines there.

I had him gaze at the accumulation of pale blue glass bottles on the shelves.

Medicines are what halt the collapse of the body.

Things that attest to those who live solely by injections.

All other detestable demonic pharmaceutical apparatuses shocked him.

When the friend was leaving,

he was afraid to even touch the door handle.

I smiled and sent him off into the lively district.

Inside the Shoji

House

The elderly wife put out dried flatfish in the sun.
She was alone, satisfied with their saltiness.
The sun shone warmly.
Their shadows tangled immediately with tabi socks,
a clump of bamboo grass shadows projecting onto shoji screens alongside them.
Only winter flies buzzed.
The elderly wife then,
for the child in her belly,
sewed small undershirts and diapers.
She went out into sunlight.

And so she spent her days.

Winter tree

Deep violet buds had formed.

Amid the cold winter firewood

When I pinched it, it was alive

It was smooth.

Therefore, I had dried it in the southern sun.

Spring Afternoon

After getting out of the morning bath,

After finishing tending to the birdcage,

As I was quietly smoking tobacco,

The blueness appeared to have deepened.

The small bird preened its wet feathers.

In the sunlight,

it bathed happily.

Every time mist rose, a rainbow formed.

I gazed at it entranced.

What came from afar was the tofu seller’s trumpet,

the sound of a steam whistle,

and somewhere, the sound of drawing water from a well—that was about all there was.

My heart gazed leisurely at the small bird.

In the riverside depths where no one visited,

it was a spring afternoon still awaiting cherry blossoms.

One night

The lamplights from every house
shone cheerfully tonight.
In the quiet depths of the night
something lay within the thicket of the grove.
Going into any house,
I felt like talking warmly.

Within the Shoji

As I was reading a book,

the brightness of that morning's shoji differed from usual.

Quiet and warm,

the ground, steamed by daylight, gave off a faint scent.

The cheek facing the desk quickened with life.

Separated by the shoji,
a faint cherry pink began to show through.

Moreover, since no one ever came to the room...

Not a single footstep.

Peach Twig

On the hot spring's paving stones
This morning, some child must have brought it.
The peach twig was trampled
Oozing blue pistils.
While entering the bath and gazing at it,
When sunlight filled the space beyond the window,
The blossoms of the tree that had dyed the opposite mountain blazed dreamlike.
I felt lonely.
Small bird

One day

During my absence, a young man came to visit
and left a pair of small birds in their cage
that he had sent to me.
The small birds were a tiny married couple—
they were an unnamed Portuguese species
that he had received from a Westerner.
Having said this, the unknown friend departed.
A bundle of millet had been included.
That friend had been keeping
these rare birds in his bleak boarding house room
where he let them roam freely.

To the member of my household who had come out to the entranceway,

When handing over the cage,

the unknown friend gazed at the small birds with genuine nostalgia.

He did not try to leave for some time.

Then he smoked a cigarette,

lingered over his contemplation of the cage and birds,

and made his way back through Tabata’s rough roads from their depths.

“I’ll bring food by now and then.

Please take good care of them.”

Late that night, after the unknown friend had spoken these words and departed,

I returned home from town slightly drunk.

On the desk in my room
I discovered these rare small birds.
The next day was clear—
when bathed in morning light,
the small birds with cocoa-colored feathers and white beaks,
while splashing in water
in low tones,
chirped merrily as they played.
From time to time through the next room,
I paused my work
and could make out their chirping voices.
The avian species linked to sunny days,
moreover appearing as a pair chirping eagerly with lonely vigor,
flitted back and forth before my eyes.

Star.

I tried to smile.

Casually, abruptly,

Quietly.

That girl also did likewise.

In that interval, three hundred years had already passed.

Stove.

It was still spring, but in my room,

The stove is quietly burning.
The deep green of a cycad is there.
When tired, I smoke a cigarette there.

Winter is reluctant to depart.

That was why I still cherished the stove.

Winter—

Both roofs and bamboo grass

They sagged under the weight of frost and did not move.
winter’s.
A whetstone-like moon hung above them all.

Everything was frozen stiff.
There was no wind at all. Nothing moved.
Fear.
The person who had come asking for directions
They came three times in a single night.
All three times, I told them how to get there.

It was a dark evening.

Clouds raced vigorously across the cold sky.

Whetted stars glistened in countless numbers.

That person finally did not come again that night.

However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that they would come no matter what.

As I gazed at the dark starry sky,

I felt as if I could see that person walking along the muddy road.

Leaning against my desk,

I strained my ears and focused my body.

Might that person suddenly come?

My heart thudded so violently I couldn't settle.

I opened the window many times.

The darkness, layering darkness upon darkness, continued beyond the window.

Finally, that person did not come.

Summer Noon

Ayu Silhouettes

Ayu with moles on their backs

In sunlit quiet rapids swim with crystalline clarity—

Forming into several rows

Their gentle bodies gleam

Shadows on white sand

Like shadow play

Swell and shrink

At times glistening

Beads forming where water meets its own darkness

Sinking gently to sandy bottom

At faintest sound

Startle like scattered flowers

Regathering—

A large ayu sleekly breaking from school

Does it sometimes lead them?

It emerged slightly at the head of the rapids,
proudly swam up high only to reach the surface,
flipped over with a snap.
A hushed ripple formed.
All that remained was the scent of young leaves upon the embankment.

Summer Noon

The Radiance of Summer

Submerged in light from edge to edge.

Within it,

one by one they were being carved—

the forms of small creatures,

thin wings.

Though I didn’t know who carved them,

with each chisel stroke they emerged.

Night

When night fell and I looked at the leaves,
I felt a strangely ethereal atmosphere.
Even when I looked at the upturned earth,
I felt as though peering into a deep place.
When night came, the wind whispered.
It shook the tree leaves.
I felt as though something had stealthily embraced each other.
Shadow-like things…
The sky was deep.
Stars blanketed the expanse.
No matter how long I looked, I never grew weary.
The more I looked, the more I felt as though I was discovering something.
I felt new things imprint themselves upon my heart.

those that clustered and shone

a solitary one hovering so near the earth

Obliquely casting light,

there was one that shone with crystalline clarity.

It was lonesome being separated from the cluster of stars.

I began to feel strangely as though something was speaking to me.

The more I looked, the more I wanted to speak of something.

Dream

I had a dream.

A single dream...

I didn't know when I had dreamed it.

But in that dream,

I was given something mysterious -

A small twinkling thing

Resembling a star

Formless

Something that was my heart itself

I found myself within my own heart.

At times when night fell,

The heart would quietly detach from me...

To endless distances

Becoming like a delicate child

Into the stars

There it encountered various things.

It encountered various creatures.

It encountered silent shadow-like figures.

All those present were naked,

dwelling in a beautiful light.

Fly

As it buzzed and fluttered its wings,

the fly shimmered with iridescent hues,

and then pretended to be dead.

It didn't move.

It lay still.

It might have died.

Its body lay supine, glistening.

The fly was discarded

on the ground.

There, the ants had begun their activity—

neither ground nor

underground—

a multitude of ants were forming a swirling mass.

The fly remained motionless.

Anyone would think it must have died.

The bright summer light was shining.

Light continued to pour onto the fly's body.

Warmth was spreading vigorously.

But it didn't move.

Ants surrounded trees and grass and houses—

They were surrounding all things.

And they climbed everything that could be climbed.

They were walking everywhere they could walk.

But they still did not know of the fly.

The discarded fly was still dead.

However, it would likely move soon.

It remained strangely silent.

And yet there was no mistaking that it would rise and depart.

Mountain Valley Road

Withered grass sways.

A deceptively cold evening descended.

Withered grass sways.

It grew so dark that it could no longer be seen.

A child's voice came from somewhere.
A single lamp was visible amid sparse woods.

Yamanote Line

On the station's coarse building and the cold paving stones

A round girl stood.

Every part of her body was red.

Her kimono, her shawl, her gloves—

Her face too—

Snow wasn’t falling, but it was cold.

When anyone gazed vaguely at the railroad tracks,

It was a day when steam trains and electric trains alike appeared dreamlike.

A woman whose face and kimono were both crimson

On the cold paving stones, she stood alone.

The more one looked, the more beautiful she appeared.

She was unparalleled in her gentleness.

Everyone’s eyes were drawn to that girl.

In the Yamanote Line—whether enclosed by cold glass doors or left exposed—

Daphne shrubs exuded their fragrance to the fullest,

Steamed by the day as they lay atop the embankment.

Before long, the train departed carrying the woman.

Only the paving stones and glass remained, growing ever colder.

Embankment

In the depths of Tabata lay a railway overpass.

The embankments lining both sides there

had recently turned a deep green and formed dense thickets of grass.

In the morning, I would surely go for a walk.

In afternoons too—worn out from work—I walked.

Even after finishing dinner, I walked.

Strangely, in the evening, the opposite embankment

lay heavy with shadow.

This embankment too stretched long and dark,

evoking a deep valley.

The roofs of houses on the opposite side,

trees surrounding the roofs,

trees with beautiful stars flickering among them,

and a refreshing breeze, as if it had burst forth from the greenery,

A gentle, refreshing breeze caressed the body.

Occasionally through the gaps passed the Yamanote Line train.

Bright windows,

Glimmering white kimono,

The female passenger’s swollen knees,

A signal, blue and trembling.

No matter how exhausted I became,

When I came to this embankment, I felt refreshed.

No one walked here in the evening.

Only the wind whispered—.

Lovers of Ceramics

When I gazed at old ceramics,
I found myself thinking they bore some resemblance to the bark of an old tree.
Strangely, ceramics grew more akin to old trees with age—
The swollen parts where tree roots had risen bore resemblance.
That’s why it was best to leave them lying among tree roots.
I saw Chinese people attaching old fragments such as Goryeo celadon
To the front buttons of clothes
When I saw them attaching the fragments to watch chains,
I truly felt as though I was seeing a people who loved ceramics.
In reality, the older something is, the newer it becomes.
It doesn’t need to have form.

If one comprehends even the essence of the clay in old ceramics,

I needed nothing more.

Tentatively placing an old jar,

setting it before my eyes and gazing,

I came to discern even the color of the sky.

The quietness of harmony—that intense relationship steeped in immense power—

it always surprised me.

I took it in hand.

Softness extended beyond its roundness.

Even the roundness of opposite flesh seemed to permeate through.

Thieving Heart

I had a single silver coin in my pocket.

I stood in the dim kitchen.
I did not move a muscle.
There was a smell of dried fish.
Mother’s voice sounded.
Each time, I was startled.
I was sobbing, but
as for the silver coin, I answered, “I don’t know.”
The cheek was struck repeatedly.

But I still answered that I didn’t know.

Mother left soon after.

There was a smell of dried fish.

I methodically started gnawing on the dried fish.

The dried fish was good.

Under my foot,

the silver coin from earlier was being firmly pressed.

This time, Father came.

I had my hand gripping the dried fish.

My hand was forcibly pried open.

Father took the dried fish and went to Mother.

I finally clutched the silver coin in my hand.

Father and Mother’s arguing voices sounded.
Even so，I did not try to return the silver coin.

Beautiful Fly’s Song

From my room, the woman's room was visible.
The woman was now doing her morning makeup.
Facing the large mirror with cheerful coolness,
she applied cold water-based white makeup to the nape of her neck.
It was a summer morning.
The woman's bared skin lay damply heavy,
slightly tinged with blue as it lay spread out.
There was a plain, subdued sheen,

It did not shine in the slightest.
The heaviness was beautiful.
Layered and shifting,

Still, it remained settled.
The summer morning was refreshing.
Of course, it was perfectly clear.

There was no one in the house.

That sort of woman’s makeup continued for a long time.

Green trees densely

Because they surrounded the woman’s room,

It remained clearly visible.

How much time had gone by was unknown.

Yet the woman’s makeup continued endlessly.

Delicate as a spider’s thread,

Not one eyebrow stirred.

She remained still.

A fly had landed on that skin.

Facial Impression

One summer.

On the way there and back, I saw the same person.

That was in the mountains along the Shinetsu Line.

I saw that person again in Tokyo’s streets.

Three years passed, and I saw that person’s face again.

In the end, I sometimes felt I might meet that person again and grew uneasy.
That person came even into my dreams.
When my shoulders stiffened,

That person's face came floating dimly into view.

Sparrow

To get milk
Because my mother had no milk
To the back of Hachiman-sama
Every day I went to collect milk.
That road stretched with blue hedges
and became a slope where the gardens of people's houses came into view.

There, deutzia flowers were white.

Morning and evening, on that slope road,

I went to get milk and got wet in the rain.

I returned carrying the white bottle.

The slope was part of a single-sided town.

The ground bamboo turned lushly blue-green from the rain.

Because my mother had no milk

The child wouldn’t stop crying.
Even when a tantrum arose,
Silently I endured.
Gyaa, aa-o, gya, aa-o
When it was time for milk,
I went out into the rain.
Gyaa, aa-o, gya, gya yaa-o,
Morning and evening,

Because my mother urged me on,
through the rain rotting the deutzia flowers on the slope road,
carrying a glass bottle, I walked on,
if only there was milk again this morning,
thinking only of that, I descended the slope.

The slope on one side had become Hachiman-sama's forest.

Loquat Fruit

To a certain person,

Because the loquat fruits had ripened,

when I said, "Please come pick them with your children,"

that person brought along about five children

on Sunday morning

and took every last one.

In truth, not a single one remained -

they stripped the tree completely bare,

Smiling, they went back home.

The people of my household
still had not eaten a single one of those loquat fruits.
Everyone had been eagerly waiting for them to ripen, yet—
my flattery had stripped the tree bare.
The roughly five pecks that had been there—
that person had put them into a basket and taken them away.

I had thought they would leave at least some for my household, but—

Afterwards,

The members of my household gathered
and looked up at the loquat tree forlornly.
"No matter how you look at it,"
"That person is simply too cruel,"
they all said in unison.

They all exchanged remarks among themselves.

Owl

Hoo, hoo,

Gorosuke hoo, hoo,

When someone said, “What kind of bird is that?”
“That’s an owl,” they replied.
They all cocked their ears.
Hoo, hoo,

Gorosuke, hoo, hoo,

In the inner reaches of Tabata, on evenings deep into the rainy season,

Hoo-hoo—Gorosuke hoo—it cried.

Under the old tree,

someone said there was something good buried here.

Speaking of which—his enoki tree was old.

It must have been about a thousand years now.

There might be something from the Stone Age buried here.

“Is that so?”

“Is it really that old?”

Hoo, hoo, Gorosuke hoo,

Scattered drops began to fall again, hoo, hoo.

Sparrow

Because her younger sister was blind,

the older sister caught a sparrow and brought it back.

She had tied its legs with thread and kept hold of it.

"This is what they call a sparrow, you know."

"You better remember this well," she says.

The younger sister pulled in the thread.
She tried holding the sparrow in her hand.
Because it was a warm little bird,
the younger sister was happily playing in the street.
The older sister saw me passing by.
The older sister gave a soft smile.
The blind younger sister was still holding the sparrow.

Child

A child was born.
They closely resembled me.
Some part resembled.
Even their voice resembled.
When angry, they would shake their face in frustration.
That part was so much like me.
Because they resembled me so much,
I could not gaze at them for long.
I would go to see them from time to time,
then return again to my desk,
my heart constantly startled by something.

I was constantly amazed.