[annals] Chika Sagawa departs the ICU
Translated by Sawako Nakayasu.
Beard of Death
A chef clutches the blue sky. Four fingerprints are left,
—Gradually a chicken bleeds. Even here the sun is crushed.
Blue-suited wardens of the sky who come inquiring.
I hear daylight run by.
In prison they keep watch over a dream longer than life.
Trying to reach the outside world that is like the back of an
embroidery, I become a moth that slams into the window.
If for a single day the long tendril of death would loosen its hold,
this miracle would make us jump with joy.
Death strips my shell.
Ribbon of May
The air roared with laughter outside my window
And in the shadow of its colorful tongue
Leaves are blowing in clumps
I am unable to think
Is there someone there
I reach a hand into the darkness
Only to find a long wind of hair
Sleeping
When the wind where her hair unravels runs down the thicket,
it becomes a flame.
She brings with her an unbecoming golden ring.
Turning and turning it, she tosses it out into the air.
Much like plants, people hoped to grasp, conquer, and spring
back against all physical impediments with their entire bodies.
But at the temple the bell does not ring.
For their blue veins were bare, and their backs were the night.
I briefly watched the garden wither at the far end of the sky.
The tree that pulls away from its leaves, like memories discarded.
That thicket is already gone.
The day is long; decaying lives fill the sunken earth with deep
crimson.
And then autumn rises from our feet.
The Day the Bell Tolls
All day
I hear the fallen, trampled leaves groaning.
Such is the afternoon of life
It reports the time that has already passed.
As when the sound of the bell
Shaves away the flesh of trees
Piece by piece
Because time no longer exists there.
—The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa
[to be continued]