The Dry Season

Shuri Kido

       All of it dependent on words.

       When books burn,

       even the settings of stars collapse,

       and slipping from thick palms and fingers,

       the history of place falls away,

       even the structure of the human body goes wrong then.

       (At this moment a figure passes quickly through the summer grass)—

       Letting the blessings of ancestors fall on the body,

       drawing a bow toward the sleepless (karmic) core.

       (What is this festival eve for?)

       Recognizing, as something like moonlight,

       the maternal voice of origin as it ricochets through time’s usages

       and sinks (into the mind).

A word, unseasoned wood.

A woman’s laughter floats out

       from bamboo leaves that rustle

          in a kind of rhyme with the strum of grooves in a copper board,

       as she passes behind the sliding door of half-transparent Japanese paper

       (although I recognized her for what she was).

       Is anything redeemed (by one preceding line)?

       Something like words can be imagined, trembling,

       the long genealogy of the mother-tongue,

       each phoneme standing clear (without its face)—

       (having been) arousing, aroused,

       aroused, always, back to questions (echoing back)

       never finished, but nested by echoes.

       (Being born ..., being born ... )

       Oh moon, come back from your eclipse! Melt down

       the utensils at hand,

       mute the images we see on the sliding door!

       (The incarnation diminishing)—

       Only occasionally can the udumbara flowers be seen.

       Stuffed with thousands of years of funeral services, (released)

       not tamed,

       (a flicker of something like flames ... )—

       Still, endorsement, words, body

       (these, which are not given)

       are not even what I can call for.

Translated from the Japanese