Contemprary Tanka Poet Mariko Kitakubo.
Essays posted in other publications to date.
when my mother
has silently slipped
from her life,
I sought a new star
in the Milky Way
tranquilly ashes
continue to fall
on this ruined village
where like a scream
the silence shines
after all the years
of a single mother
with one daughter,
this empty space -
a leaden-gray moon
after viewing the 'Nuclear Scars of Chernobyl' exhibition of photographs by Hirokawa Ryouichi
approaching I see
a village ruined
wind howls on high
as if all their names
have been forgotten
after viewing the ' Nuclear Scars of Chernobyl ' exhibition of photographs by Hirokawa Ryouichi
sometimes
while I gaze at the sky
I'm thinking
of hydraulics,of what
my boy is studying
it feels like I'm astray
in a giant sand-clock,
with quantities of sand
falling down on me
from time to time
urn your back
on your mother and walk on,
grow strong -
the wind of your childhood
blows bright in my memory
I've gone on
not putting it all
into words - now
sounds from the river
within me grow louder
on a chilling morning
I realise that
for my mother
there will be
no next summer
Mother departed this life
Mother is dead -
beneath my recollections,
like a ringing in the ears
the receding light
of mid-summer
can I love again,
do I still have
the courage
to fall
head over heels?
sun shining
into corners of the glass door -
leaving behind
an unfinished letter
loving both
thunder and evening showers
I love
the summer that uproots
and carries me off
all alone
in a far-off place
is revolving
a tiny universe,
a plum in space
the mother
who dwells within me
is smiling
as she nurses an infant,
a younger mother than now
my mother
has become
my beloved child,
put to bed
in a pure white room
my life
is without a future -
meantime
I've increased the earring holes
in one of my lobes
time after death,
immeasurable -
I will put together
a bundle of dim lights
and walk on
there are probably
poems that only I
can write -
I prefer cherry trees
after their blossoms
unconscious
my mother sleeps on,
beside her
I drift away a little
from the time of this world
I will live feeding on my heartbreak--
at my feet
the silence of love
laps like wavelets
what emptiness,this -
on the surface
of the marsh
a blue heron stalks,
casting a long shadow
in the end
I will be
nothing but spirit,
eyes and ears
all gone
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