the poems of Nakahara Chūya

AUTUMN POEM

1.

The field until yesterday

was burning now

it stretches under clouds

& sky unmindful.

And they say the rain

each time it comes

brings autumn that much

closer even more so

autumn borne cicadas

sing out everywhere,

nesting sometimes in a tree

awash in grass.

I smoke a cigarette,

smoke spiraling

through stale air,

I try & try

to stare

at the horizon.

Can't be done,

The ghosts of heat

& haze

stand up or flop down.

And I find myself alone there,

squatting

A cloudy sky

dark golden light

plays off now

as it always was,

so high I can't help

looking down.

I tell you that I live

resigned to ennui,

drawing from my cigarette

three different tastes.

Death may no longer be

so far away.

2

"He did, he said so long & then

he walked away, he walked out from that door,

the weird smile that he wore, shiny like brass,

his smile that didn't look like someone living.

His eyes like water in a pond the color when it clears,

or something. He talked like someone somewhere else.

Would cut his speech up into little pieces.

He used to think of little things that didn't matter."

"Yes, just like that. I wonder if he knew that he was dying.

He would laugh and tell you that the stars became him

when he stared at them. And that was just a while ago.

...........................

A while ago. Swore that the clogs that he was wearing weren't his."

3

The grass was absolutely still,

and over it a butterfly was flying.

He took it all in from the veranda,

stood there dressed in his yukata.

And I, you know, would watch him

from this angle. Staring after it,

that yellow butterfly. I can remember now

the whistles of the tofu vendors

back and forth, the telephone pole

clear against the evening sky.

Then he turned back to me and said "I ...

yesterday, I flipped a stone over that weighed

maybe a hundred pounds." And so I asked

"how come? and where was that?"

Then you know what? He kept on staring at me,

straight into my eyes, like he was getting mad,

or something ... That's when I got scared.

How strange we are before we die ...