GRASS NOTES Poem by Shoichiro Iwakiri

The day I visit Mother with my family carrying a gift of Japanese pastry,
my birth Mother busily dresses herself in kimono and sits on the tatami,
welcomes us, and places hospitable dishes before us.
Wrapped in the familiar scent of bedding
having had our stories blossom for some days
we exchange our parting words, and we wave.
When she is sure that we are no longer visible
Mother lets her kimono slide off slowly, allowing
the roof, walls, pillars and floor to disappear, having conjured them all
by the power of Fantasy.
Now she sits bathing in the moonlight in a desolate garden.
The wind rises, taking her thinned hair in its cold flow, in a town
where people no longer live (in such desolation
I cannot even go crazy), like a red sandalwood box decaying in the dews,
like a box holding a child's collection of pebbles, buttons and marbles,
like a box that sings a song when its lid is lifted,
like a box that is waiting for a hand to wind it
Mother sits, drenched in the moonlight, in the dew-laden grass.
© Translation: 2008, Takako U. Lento