ND EXCLUSIVE — Kazuko Shiraishi: “Sea, Land, Shadow”

Soon after the Japanese tsunami disaster occurred on March 11, poet Kazuko Shiraishi journeyed to one of the worst struck cities, Iwanuma.  She wrote a poem in response to the devastation she saw before her. The original poem in Japanese was published in the June issue of Gendaishi Techoo in Japan.  New Directions is proud to present the translation of Kazuko Shiraishi’s “Sea, Land, and Shadow.”

KAZUKO SHIRAISHI

“Sea, Land, Shadow”

sea, land, shadow, Iwanuma

the tsunami   tsunami came

in silence it came

in silence it left

this is Iwanuma

 

what I saw

what I met was

beyond those people,   those endearing people’s

souls   the souls destination

there were no houses but a place where houses had been

at the far seashore

there  was only one boat

it is a shadow

(it was a disheartened   lonely boat

 of ghosts   with no one on board)

 

on this side there was no one

after the tsunami left

the boat alone remained

people left   disappeared

in this world no one   the boat stubbornly alone    obstinately

people gather

the surviving relatives now

stand at the back gate of the ruins of a house

the house, maybe for being silent    around the corner

death proudly   paying no attention

like courage   quite indifferently

was floating the spirits of the dead   like ping-pong balls

 

the people, the boats completely gone with the tsunami

tonight you would not be able to sleep

that boat is coming

after the people all   gone

to the country of the dead

what are you going to do

tonight you would not be able to sleep

 

that boat is coming

this land the tsunami controls in great force

kicking all   the people   the houses   the lives

quite indifferently  

only a little    cold sign of spring

pretending not to know  

begins to open cherry blossoms a little

between the mountains   pretending not to be noticing

 

but

there was a man who was born in this land

he visited for the first time   in sixty some years

the memories of

his grandfather, grandmother and childhood

might be unconsciously wishing somewhere

somewhere the spirits exist

and talk to him tenderly

I can hear   

the small voices of the spirits just born

“mommy, milk”

the big sound of a wave

it is a signal from the previous life

everyone   watch out

for the wave   don’t let your guard down

the laughing of a baby

    the mother drawing the baby to her breast

    why, why, what?

what is that earth tremor    why   the earth is sinking

bam! the wave higher than heaven comes surging

 

the souls ascend to heaven

mother, father, you

everyone was by the sea wave’s   thick walls,

swallowed

and shut in 

their lives were in an instant…

no one taught me

about the waves that reach to heaven

higher than the houses and the woods

I can see

the houses and the boat packed in a box of 

thick rough waves

no longer human beings

 

even the last souls they had

left from the bodies,  and float

on the wave to pass on the sea

and ascending to heaven

I heard the souls fly

rising off the bodies that had lost life

 

The day after the tsunami there were some people who visited this land

already that place was a bright empty field

the boat was as though not even a soul remained

everything with different faces

leaning on the woods    as though

it were a field of somewhere else

unknown travelers

appeared    and were looking at

all the fields of lost rice and crops

the spirits of  Iwanuma

“in Iwanuma I was    born, you know

when I was little   I left this land

and went to a far place   and came here today”

 

every house was broken    or came to pieces

at a barely standing     small yellow house in the evening

friends of the people who were living there gathered

I could see the souls of

the people who were living there shine

it was the boat drying its body in the dark

I saw a newspaper of the early Showa spread out

there were riddles for the dead    and for the living people

I could tell the souls were there

both deeply    filled with love

when a little warm setting sun appeared

the nearby mountain cherry trees too

have begun to bloom as though struck

 

goodbye

I will come to see you again

on clouds of the deep spirits of souls

the setting sun is reflecting 

© Translated from the Japanese by Yumiko Tsumura