Kokoro

D. J. HUGHES

KOKORO

To Beongcheon Yu

I step in the savage orders of the noon,

The loungers in front of hedges, the sneers

On cigarettes, and all the wistful years

We planned on come upon too soon.

Now weakness drones like trucks pulling over hills,

Winks at the corners its irresolute yellow,

Pushing me from island to island, shallow

With memory, kept by all the keepers' tills.

For what is absence? At the heart of things

A hieratic poem forever mute

Like those translations whose impatient root

We never got quite right. Yet something brings

Me semblance in the traffic of the self's complaint.

A sudden street we knew; your smile: the passion of restraint.