I'm looking for clothes that
suit me to a T.
I can't find them no matter where I go.
Form, material, and color that can express all of my inner life.
Outfits that affirm I'm alive here now
Elude me though I combine all the images I know.
Even my parents can't find clothes for me in Japan today.
Like a limbless kokeshi doll,
Like a peeled hard-boiled egg,
Like a fetus waiting to be born,
I watch for something.
Like a just-hatched wet chick,
I'm transfixed by premonitions of future joys and sorrows.
I'm not yet able to express it in words.
Yet my heart beats; I'm alive.
It makes little difference where you're born in this country.
You're pressed, rushed, squeezed into a mold.
Every rural district is mercilessly pierced by wide dreary roads and lined with
tasteless megastores.
But the sight of lush green mountains brings tears to my eyes.
Toylike miniature waterfalls,
The gray of a sea as placid as a lake,
I love the delicate natural features unique to this country.
This is an age without surprises.
While parliament meets to deliberate how to save a tiny bird, children kill
cats.
While villagers joyfully shoulder the portable shrine in the age-old festival,
someone poisons the communal meal.
Some people don't know what to believe in.
A brief digression: My friend's mother always keeps her nails manicured,
and her unused kitchen sparkles.
My friend eats only upscale-supermarket fare and fresh-baked French bread delivered
by a boy.
Yet my friend is loved.
My mother is a farmer's daughter and her kitchen is soiled with grease.
She makes delicious white rice and tempura and pickles.
I'm also loved.
More than the downside of there being a difference,
In spite of the difference still loving and understanding each other, and growing
up.
I've seen too many sorts of people in this kaleidoscopic age.
Now I can fearlessly meet people regardless of their looks or origins.
We trust our instincts and shed our prejudices.
Our spirits steadily wax more wonderful.
I like to eat, to loaf
To be healthy,
To be well thought of.
I like money.
I like to avert my eyes from unpleasant sights.
Yet I don't live for these.
To do what I want to do,
I can go without eating, endure a rough patch,
Suffer poor health,
Pocket an insult, live in poverty,
See much ugliness.
I don't dislike my still-juvenile self who possesses this much resolve.
To live is always to see both ways.
Which is a tolerable thing.
I don't want TV and newspapers to report only sad events.
We've only just embarked on the new journey.