Sleeping — Web Exclusive
By Sagawa Chika
Translated by Sawako Nakayasu
When the wind about to unravel her hair runs down through the thicket, it becomes a flame.
She brings an unbecoming golden ring.
Turning and turning it, she tosses it out into the air.
With all physical impediments, as is the case with plants, people
understood and conquered them with their entire bodies and then wanted to spring back up.
However, at the temple the bell does not ring.
Because they had their blue veins bared, and their backs were the night.
I briefly watched the garden wither at the far end of the sky.
The tree that pulls away from its leaves, like memories getting discarded. That thicket is already gone.
The day is long; the lives that decay fill the depressed earth with red.
And then autumn rises by our feet.
Chika Sagawa (1911–1935), whose real name was Aiko Kawasaki, was one of the first female modernist poets in Japan and was an esteemed member of the literary community surrounding Katue Kitasono. After her death, her poems were collected and edited by Ito Sei and published as the Collected Poems.
Sawako Nakayasu was born in Japan and has lived mostly in the U.S. since the age of six. Her most recent books are Texture Notes (Letter Machine, 2010), Hurry Home Honey (Burning Deck, 2009), and a translation of Kawata Ayane’s poetry, Time of Sky/Castles in the Air (Litmus Press, 2010). Her translation of Takashi Hiraide’s For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut (New Directions, 2008) received the 2009 Best Translated Book Award from Three Percent.