Masayo Koike

When we returned from the trip
His
Face indicated that something had ended
The trip had
Indisputably ended
The journey's end encroached on
Numerous other things that
Seemed to be approaching numerous endings
Let's go on another trip,
Let's come back to Italy again,
Chatting like this at the end of the journey
Somewhere deep deep within us
Something had already ended between us
For sometime afterwards we remained within the ending but
One day suddenly he began to talk
I think we should separate
At these words
For the first time a feeling that something was amiss grew in me
Yet for a long long time
I too lived within the ending
An ending at the time that
When I ended it
I felt
That there ought be a new beginning
Between him and me
Being eaten away by our ending
Even things around us one by one crumbled
The oven telephone fridge printer
Glasses all broke, even the window pane broke
The ending of everything continued
Almost new, refreshing
All the endings
Fell around me and collected like snow
...

Rain fell in a mass
A body of rain but it was not noisy
Rain, so called collectively
Disjoined drops of water
They call ‘fall', in the midst of a furious journey
Led by an outside force called gravity
The life of rain overtakes with speed alone
The brevity of its journey to earth
In eyelines watching rain
A silent drop of rain stops
In a twinkling of the eye the speed of life
Always invisible fixed
Cannot be overtaken no matter at what speed
That indeed
Is the core of life
Glittering
Stopping at a strange height
The drop itself not wet in the least
Stares at the life of rain
...

The girl who takes a dose of youthful souls
Who doesn't bow is still effective

The end of summer
In the middle of the road
Lying on its back dead a Brown Baker cicada

In the aunt's folded fan
Jammed within this year's butterfly is dead

In the tobacconist at the bottom of the slope
Not moving an inch the perpectual shop assistant

Children gleam
Fish or skylarks
Sped off in the direction of the sea-tang

In the forlorn, tiny universe dog dung remains

The power of green binds the window
All the trees silently burst into flame
Z, zzz, zzzz
Buzzing green

Afternoon in the locked music room
A strange chord can be heard

On top of the piano
The ashtray and the girl
Matches and a bundle of small candles

‘Take off your socks'
‘Keep your skirt on'

The girl's legs are slowly opened
In the inlet giddy students in the grade above

Looking from afar another girl
This summer
Binds all their pasts together
Travelling behind them

From tomorrow all will begin their end
...

Nothing captured Hakozaki Ichirô's heart as much as deep blue flowers

One day
When he was waiting in front of the station for a friend
By chance his eye fell upon a nearby flower bed
There quite by accident
A mass of small blue flowers was growing
His line of vision
As if harvested by a vacuum cleaner was sucked into it
Hakozaki could not understand what had happened

Blue
Pierced Hakozaki's mucus membranes
Like an overflowing river it
Encroached upon his interior
Without exception every word that he possessed was drowned
After the profound silence only an exclamation mark
Was hoisted up like a small fish

Ah,
How deep was the blue,
Thought Hakozaki

It was at that time when he was assailed by a sharp grief
That made him want to weep loudly
There was no reason for this grief
In front of the station like this
He thought I should not break into tears all of a sudden
The self that Hakozaki had
Stifled firmly now
Turned him into
A newborn baby

Blue flowers the first thing the baby had seen since its birth

This was an instantaneous
Movement of emotion, an impulse
Far away from that thing called passion Hakozaki
Had never been as shocked by his own actions as then

It was only a colour
It was only blue

But Hakozaki was distraught
In his chest
There was a tightness
He felt as if he wanted to dive into the flowers
It was truly
That he was in love with the flowers, exactly that

‘Hakozaki, sorry for being late'
According to his friend who had said this, and then tapped him on the shoulder from behind
Hakozaki at that time
With a somewhat contorted face
Appeared to be saying something about blue flowers
In fact
It was the behaviour of a
Completely helpless baby

The sequel -

1 What befell Hakozaki after that I don't know.

2 When Asians are newborn a blue spot appears near their buttocks. It's a very pale blue mark like paint dissolved in water. We have blue in our bodies from the beginning.
When I was a child, on the lymphatic glands on my groin I had an almond-shaped blue spot. In the bath I used to compare mine with my little sister's. In colour and appearance my little sister's blue spot was slightly different. Now I can't find it anywhere, I wonder when, where and how it disappeared?

3 Once I used to stare feverishly at a blue convolvulus in my garden and I felt as if I was peeking at someone's crotch. Plant life revolves like a screw and bores into the depth of the life of the person who is observing it.

Like Hakozaki I also went into ecstasy over the blue convolvulus. This Western convolvulus had a warm yellow in its center. Around the centre there was an expanse of sad blue, inexpressively elegant and profound, while I was staring at it I felt consumed by the desire to plunge into the centre of convolvulus. The desire to plunge to one's death into the centre of the flower, a deep longing for blue, was this not the original expression of the emotion that drove many young people to travel?

4 At school the teacher used to say blue is for boys and pink is for girls. I hate the notion of dividing things up like this. When I looked around, everything - the sewing boxes, the calligraphy tools - was like this. But I don't like pink. As soon as I realized this, my mind was made up. I realized that amongst all the girls in the class, my sewing box was the only blue one.

Blue - you were the colour of my first modest resistance, for me who is a girl, you were a truly noble colour that gave me the first whiff of freedom.

5 Aren't I Hakozaki? Isn't Hakozaki me? We love blue.
A tanka poet, a youth who I met yesterday talked about Izumi Shikibu with a bead of sweat on the tip of his nose
‘Remembering you . . .
The fireflies of this marsh
seem like sparks
that rise
from my body's longing'*
In the white of the boy's eye there was a faint touch of blue.
...

The small alley
Glimpsed from a fast train
I wonder where it goes?
Perhaps
In my whole life
In this alley where I shall never enter
There
People who I will never brush against
A row of dwellings that I will never see
Fish cooking I will never smell
One by one
All these impossible things lined up beside each other
Then, suddenly, vividly
With a feeling of familiarity stronger than towards any other path
This single alley rises up before me
Now
It's accompanied by a sure sadness
That I am intimate with.
There myself turning my back standing
Going down the alley slope
Chasing the setting sun
Crossing bridge after bridge
Rapidly disappearing, growing smaller myself
Finally from the end of the alley in which I find myself
The cry of a newborn baby as if a lid has been removed
A hot July day
The day on which I was born
Sprinkled water glistens on the road
...

I have few friends
Among my few friends Miss Jôgasaki
Liked bright, easy to understand
Flowers like gerberas
She had no dark side
I am not Mino Monta* but
No matter how old she got
I wanted to call her ‘young lady'
Once in our workplace many of us played a game of depth psychology
fortune-telling
Each item had a picture and a question and you had to write a simple
comment and answer
Later the meanings of the pictures were revealed
For example, the number of flowers indicated the number of future
children one might have
It was just a stupid game but all of a sudden everyone got excited
Normally she stood apart from others and was a quiet, still person but
Unexpectedly she joined in the game

And
One of the items
Had the words
‘I want to do it' attached
This was hidden from the group but
It was actually an item measuring one's sex drive
When this was revealed
Miss Jôgasaki cast her eyes down completely lost her presence of mind
and grew horribly embarrassed
We felt as if we had committed a terrible sin

Miss Jôgasaki died soon after from uterine cancer
I suppose she was a few years over forty
She remained single and never suffered in her life so
She always looked no more than twenty-five

Sometimes
Her words come to me
In a casual way as if someone had forgotten a delivery
Again and again as if her words were not quite there
From the other world
They lightly arrive ah, they've come, then, when I am quiet
Like potato starch dissolving in water
The grief slowly settles at the bottom
I know that the surface of this world grows more and more transparent
I too with my eyes downcast
Fervently
Wait
For something to pass through me
...

The Kaneko Gym on the Odakyû Railway Line is
A small
Boxing gym
At night
From inside the train
I can see people training in the Kaneko Gym
Young men boxing
Within the black night
Blossom-Pink muscles
Like cherry blossoms sweating silently
Boxing, in their movements
A stray memory comes to mind
A memory I seem to have had
Can't say for certain
‘Kaneko Gym, new boxers welcome'
This is
Always
Read silently
By those with heavy sodden hearts
They
All
Open the dark door
And
One after
Another
Have gathered
There
...

Above our heads
A star fell
A strong bluish star

Like the moment when for the first time
A man uses his instrument dripping with ink
The star swiftly disappears a blur into the sky

During then
All we could do was
To forget to wish
Just surprised, as if for the first time

The night air as if enveloping in a sphere
The void after it was lost to sight

(Among the night trees a solemn sound grown by the rhythm)

Ah, what a
Daring wheel-track traced by the star!

It was
Like a stake silently driven into us
Remain on the earth and live!
Live, said the star!
...

The big elm tree shaken gracefully by the
Small birds all together who
Landed on the
Snow-covered path

Big drops of happiness scattered from heaven
Like anger
Beat against
The soft muddy earth

Our breasts are full

Still a little
Weak but
The barbarian complex light from the sun
Birds the weight of small lemons
Gather
Disperse
Again gather

The mighty grip that grasps and releases
Works on the land in Spring

Woman,
Vividly,
On the surface of the water intuition describes the shape of a soul
...

‘I know where a waterfall is'
Said the mountain man
His eyes were without doubt
Eyes that knew where the waterfall was

But this was
Not something that he could teach others by opening a map
With silence folded
Inside the mountain man
For many years and months
‘I know where a waterfall is.'
When he said this for the first time
Together with the sound of water splashing
A calm wisdom overflowed to the outside

Those who heard this no matter who
Recalled themselves travelling far away
Seeking for water

There was no one to ask, ‘where?'
There is a waterfall -
As if it is enough just to hope that there is a waterfall
Travellers raise their heavy bodies
And set out on the path to the waterfall
One by one, each
Heading in a completely different direction
...

America, in a toilet in Santa Fe
Daybreak
I was urinating softly for a long long time
In the whole world
I felt as if there was only this sound and myself
Despite the fact that I was making the noise
Curiously it sounded as if it was coming from outside
As I was being consoled by it
Like an old woman's unending story
I was
Waiting for it to end
But it would not
A time that doesn't belong
To anyone
Anywhere
I wasn't here,
I'm not alive,
I could even say this
Presently the sound ceased
In this room that had rapidly grown cold
A silent soul suddenly created
Is that me, is it me?
The temperature of life left in the shape of an invisible circle
Were you there?
Were you there in that room?
I was
I am alive
Long before then the questioning voice reached me
...

The rays of the setting sun
Shone down on a single house
The way it shone
That house
I knew at once, was empty
So much and so far
Did the house
All its windows, all its doors tightly shut
Permit the incursion of the rays of the setting sun into its very interior
Like water spilling
Into every corner
It was a sign that something had become null and void
The sun
Had easily passed through the locked doors
And brushed against the deepest recesses of the house
Cold absences that no one had noticed
Grew warm
Its arrival
Without mercy
Was frighteningly calm but it could not be resisted
Like the direct gaze of a king
In antiquity
The far away sound
Of the river flooding was sealed shut
The sun and the absence
On that day
Joined in the quietest coitus in the world
...

From one side to the other
Just like a piece of cloth completely caught by the wind
I want to go on living
I am a cloth but
Like a person who sees me
Sees the wind and forgets the cloth
I become the wind
Then in a valley where the wind stopped
Suddenly I become once again a rag
Caught in the branch of the tree, above me
A new wind blows from afar
In a shape no one recognizes
The rag addresses the wind
‘I'm looking at you from here'
With a newborn baby's coldest cry
At that very time
The wind was born
Now, crossing a suspension bridge
Now, competing with the water on the river
Blowing through valleys
I am the wind
The pain of separation from cloth
My first memory of emotion
The pain of cloth dispatching the wind
Is the oldest sensation that I have experienced
The rag will rot away at the bottom of a deep valley
And the wind
With no memories no homeland no relatives
Because of its isolation is in a state of transparency
Overtaking isolation
The wind once more continues to blow
...

It was the autumn of my fifth year when I encountered the antelope
In the hot springs spa deep in the Hodaka mountain range
The antelope silently drew near
Through the steam it looked at my naked body
I too stared at the antelope

Separated from the herd an antelope
Me completely on my own
I scooped up hot water from the spa in the palm of my hand
And threw it at the antelope
It was a greeting in lieu of language but
The antelope seemed a little startled
When I saw the furry chest of the antelope wet with hot water
I felt as if the solitude of the antelope had moistened

The wind swept across
The leaves on the trees shook
Finally the antelope silently turned around
Silently sprang up and returned to the mountains

To the spa in my dreams
In the dead of night gently I put my toes into the hot water
Through the steam opposite I can hear faint steps
That antelope
Returns each time

Not looking at anything with its cosmic vast eyes
Drops of water from its furry chest
Dripping drip drip
...

Late at night the Daikokuya bathhouse is quiet
An old woman bone-tired
Even naked unable to be free of dirt
Rattling the door
Comes in
From the nozzle of the shower with the tap loose
Water makes a dripping sound
Bare-footed the cool of the night softly steals in
From the high skylight
The water is rocking
Overflowing the edge of the bath
I
Pass no judgement
Like a log
I look at the female bodies
I saw
Naked backs, hips and backsides
Private parts
The water flowing over their bodies
Fallen head-hair
The many hollows of the female body
Water gathering there
Dripping down
I feel as if I have been looking at this
For years over and over again
I also saw the wall separating the men's and women's baths
And I took my time to make certain that
Like a wild beast
Nobody
Climed from the men's into the women's bath
Or the other way
Amazed
...

In one moment on an evening like this
Summer is drawing to a close
In front of a greengrocer
Holding out a vegetable
The woman's young upper arm
In front of the take-away food shop
Counting her change
Her sad profile
Everything bathed in the light
Has quietly
Been drawn into the past
The leaves high on the tree just sway green
What is that power
Why doesn't it stop the summer?
Abandoned in the grasses
Between the wheels of the bicycle grass begins to grow
To my bared arm
I press
My lips
Bitter
Terribly bitter
...

In a small town in the American South
In a second-hand bookshop in decline
In the poetry corner
I found an edition of Emily Dickinson's poems
Small enough to fit into the palm of the hand
When I opened the book
Only a scrap of the title page
Mercilessly torn out remained
A jagged tear ran along diagonally
Possibly
With love
Or
To you with love
Or
To my darling
Or
I vow unending love
Or
With a dedication from an unknown sender
A secret, unforgettable phrase was written here
Thinking of the lost lines
I returned the collection to the shelf
The weak winter sunlight from the window
Warms the dust on the tiny spine
Of the one dollar Dickinson volume
To remain unsold
Was this her secret role?
Like the bird that cannot fly
Because part of a wing is missing
...

When he appears
All grows visibly darker
Suddenly the air takes on dampness
So everybody knows
That the rainman has finally arrived

Women are worried
What will happen to the quilts hung out to dry
They will be late for their meetings
At the same time strangely
When the rainman appears some women say that they grow calm
Between their fingers, between their thighs and at the corners of their eyes
Some women say they grow moist

Once the rainman appeared under the eaves
It was rain he caused himself but
It always felt as if it was someone else's fault
That was
Particularly sad for the rainman
To make matters worse the rainman
Doesn't have a single friend

Everyone knows the rainman
They all realise immediately that it's the rainman yet
They don't know how to speak to him

Once the rainman jotted down in his notebook

"Do I go to my death just making rain?"

At that very moment drops of rain began to fall
The ink ran
The words were washed away
What on earth was written there?
Not even he could read it.
...

Descending down to the bottom at the end
Of the snow-covered slope
Lies an old spring water well

Darkly swaying clear water surface
On careful inspection there
Steam rises

Unconsciously I dipped my hand in
I was struck
Embraced by the earth
Warm water

Before I could ask why
Already there was
Delivered there
And arrived temperature

As if ashamed
Of its speed
Instead of language
The water had turned to rising steam

I also
Lay the burden of language down
And soaked my hands silently in the water

To reply
To the words of the spring
...

I have never seen numerals as silent as this
15
Then
25
Countless numerals submerged completely
The bus timetable for Ushiozumachi, Kaga City
Had only two numbers written there
Twice a day
10:15 and
15:25
From deep in the heavy, cloudy sky
Light snow had begun to fall unnoticed
The faint sound of an engine somewhere
Before my very eyes
A transparent bus that should not exist came along
The windows were fogged
The heads of the passengers were hanging down
The driver's eyes were like puddles
When my heart alone had boarded, the doors shut and
The bus departed
Towards a dim, shadowy place in the centre of the snowy sky
Looking down no one was at the Ushiozu bus stop
On the cold timetable
15
And
25
Surrounding it fallen thick on the ground
The depths of time
...