DEAD SUN Poem by Chimako Tada

Spilling twinkling droplets of light
The child crawls upward
Into a world still free of furrows

He somersaults forward
The hourglass turns over
And a new era begins

He picks up stars to skip like stones
Ancient fish flap their fins and laugh
Splashing the feet of the gods

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In due time the child grows tall
His memory grows heavy

The world becomes full of his footprints
And with a yawn
The child leaves for somewhere unknown
With the sun still stuck, dead, in his pocket

Translation: 2010, Jeffrey Angles