Echoing footsteps down the alley
Her shadow figure conforming to the walls
The lights illuminate
But where light shines, darkness follows
A single hair wavers
A trembling realization
Deeper darkness in shadow
Marked with blood
A westerly wind whistles past
Carrying with it hope
A small shop comes into view
The sign of wood etched with red lettering
西の風
A fragrance like silk flows within
Enticing, yet full of poison
A fallen dream, something nightmares fear
The truth of a lie
Lit from within with a pallor
Mask of death, render of minds
The figure stands forlorn
Or is it a mirror in which the shadow views itself
Where to turn in the dusk
Shadows falling
Find a light soon or be lost
The westerly wind still blows on
The flicker and waver of a spark
A life, a lost soul
How deep does it go
What secrets lie there
Echoing, always echoing
Forever and a minute echoing
Still the figure continues on
Alone, for shadows have no shadow
Voices bidding her onward
A light above
Up and up
Climbing towards a radiance unseen
A shadow in the light is nothing
Or so the eye will believe
Former friends fall
Merely shades
Once again alone she sighs
Blind in the beauty
The closer to the light the more known
And the less understood
The westerly breeze is no longer
But now a gale tearing up the earth
The sky opens and the ground recedes
In her path to redemption the next gate has opened
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem