We Live Where We Are

Minimal

Knowing that I am interested in Japanese poetry, one of the teachers I work with gave me two books by Tanikawa Shutaro, one of Japan's most widely regarded living poets. Here are two of the poems that struck me as I was flipping through the pages:

And

When summer comes
the cicadas
sing again.

Fireworks
freeze
in my memory.

Distant countries are dim
but the universe
is right in front of your nose.

What a blessing
that people
can die

leaving behind
only the conjunction
'and.'

Mud

Memories are
dense
dusk.

To the aging
even regret
is a faint light.

The seeds
of flowers
that will never emerge--

yet even now I keep sowing,
urging the mud
to sing.