Family Poem by Tatsuji Miyoshi

As his son was to start school
Dad wrote poems everyday
The poems turned into a cap, a satchel
textbooks, crayons
and a small umbrella
On the first day of April
his son went with Mom
through the town full of cherry blossoms
to the People's School in an old castle
to attend its first grade entrance ceremony
At home, now left quiet,
Dad was alone with an aged maid
listening to bulbuls' calls
listening to the sea's roar
as if he hadn't heard them for a long time

Translation: 2010, Takako Lento