MOTHERLAND Poem by Rin Ishigaki

This summer I went to Kamikochi,

The towering mountains were huge
I was small
The friend who went with me was also small
Everyone was so small
Any comparison was ludicrous.

The trail
Wound round the mountain like a single thread
Finer than a thread
It continued on ever more faintly,

I climbed up the trail

When I came to the summit
I had grown wonderfully big
As big as the mountain
Beneath my friend's feet
The huge mountains went on and on.

The villages and towns were far-off
Indistinct and tiny,

The trail ascending the mountain was narrow but
Good enough for people to follow
If, on the trail I had just climbed
The authorities had placed a single guard
And erected a notice saying
‘No entry beyond this point.....'

Nobody could have climbed one step
Upon that dark trail from the foot of the mountain
Through the striped bamboo-grass,
In the small place at the bottom of the mountain people
Face to face
Would have had to narrow-mindedly compete with each other,
For that reason they would have been deprived in body and mind
They would have forgotten their own potentialities and
The vast sky
And life
With all its prospects
They would have become servile and unhappy.

The field of alpine flowers on the peak
Was shrouded in cloud and mist birds were there too
I believe that if people do not go there
No creature will
It was a quiet, lovely place.

If people don't go there who will!
If even the people who live there don't go there

I was overjoyed by there being no notice
On the trail I had just glanced back at
It was a mountain trail where nothing like a notice should be.

On the mountain top
Where nothing like that should exist
I yelled out without knowing why,
If someone erects a notice here
I'll tear it out
Unafraid
I'll tear it out regardless of the cost!