MY BOOKS Poem by Iku Takenaka

Ah, at the thought of my books
I feel like I'm being strangled.
The books I had devotedly collected
since I was 15 or 16.

They'd been my companions for much longer than my better half.
Though I had never counted,
there were well over 3000 of them.
Or possibly 4000!

On the morning of June 5th in 1945,
I had them all with me
and witnessed their end
as they all vanished in smoke.

Later I found a place to live.
Someone gave us mattresses.
But my books
my unfortunate books would not come back.

My terribly bleak and desolate life.
O my books.
I turn their pages from time to time in my dreams,
there are some passages I've learned by heart.