Spider Flowers
By the time cottony fluffs in a mackerel sky fade into twilight,
spider flowers come into bloom
as if spreading their hands from dusk to dusk.
As the flowers tell the legend of deep darkness,
a summer breeze blows in from somewhere,
mixing with a slight scent.
Then the clock so many minutes slow begins to tick,
my sadness and the smell of loneliness that once disappeared
start wafting beside the flowers,
and a retreating figure from years back comes alive in my mind.
As a deep sorrow fell upon the night away from my hometown,
I felt uneasy about where I was going
in the jet blackness wrapping the whole mountain.
A mountain mist cruelly kept me from going any further.
The ridge from back then looms close again.
The night spreads quiet ripples across my heart.
Tonight the moonlight
has jumped over the daytime
and pushed aside my memories.
As the night floats away quietly,
insects suck honey from the flowers,
flutter about, and stay alive.
As I have carried many thoughts,
I wonder if my heart song has managed to stay alive.
In my mind's eye,
I sway while walking
and the spider flowers wrap my path in the night's kind heart.
Red Camellias
As our camellias have come into bloom
white-eyes are pecking at their honey.
The voices of the children who come and go
announce the Little New Year.
When night arrives,
the children hold up their rice cakes on bamboo sticks
and pray to stay healthy this year
while the New Year’s pine decoration burns.
The cheers of the children and the flames
leap out of the darkness.
The red flames
toast the rice cakes
while shining at the flowers in our hearts.
The pine decoration turns into whiffs of smoke
and flies up to heaven with the god of the year.
Compared to the years before,
the burning of the pine decoration is much smaller.
But the flames will still stay ablaze this year,
granting the wishes of those of us who pray.
When I hear the clear sounds of a rustling breeze,
I’m reminded of my mother in a distant past.
The thoughts I couldn’t have shared with her
get mixed up with the smell of the burning pine and come to life.
As I pick up some lost articles,
I see the red camellias in the darkness.
Even though I’ve reached my mother’s age when she died,
maybe she’s telling me to stay here in this world.
Today's Love Letter
A white-eye flies through the leaves of sasanquas.
A tree dahlia sways in a breeze.
The petals are in bloom like a collage
under the clear winter sky.
On the top of the red-leafed tree
I see a rosy-cheeked girl.
Is she me when I was small?
She flashes a smile at me.
Even though I’ve gone through life's sorrows,
is it still my smile?
When I look up,
I find myself under the same winter sky I saw as a child
stretching empty and blue.
Distant hours seem like illusions
as the rays of the winter sun
hurry the arrival of dusk.
Suddenly someone calls me
from somewhere in the sky.
When I cast a glance,
I notice colored oranges
showing a field path I'll follow with you.
The rainbow rain from that time
turns into an echo
and wrap us as we head toward the last cape.
As I trace your buttons
as if flipping through the pages of an unread book,
I feel the dusk of life where we have fought alongside each other.
Then lovely memories sprout more strongly than loneliness,
making me want to write you a love letter for some reason.
The sasanquas tint the early winter in quiet.
I drop my love letter to you
in today’s mailbox.
Mitsuko Takayasu was born in 1945 in Nagano and now lives in Chiba. She started writing poetry in her twenties. She is the author of two collections of poetry Kikoetekuru shuu (1975) and Choka(1998). More recently, Toshiya Kamei has published translations of Mitsuko's poems in The Bitter Oleander, Miracle Monocle, and Visions International.
Translator: Toshiya Kamei holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Arkansas. His translations of Latin American literature include books by Claudia Apablaza, Liliana Blum, Carlos Bortoni, Selfa Chew, and Leticia Luna. For more information, please visit https://toshiyakamei.wordpress.com/.
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