Bird Shadow - Tanaka Ikuko

Winter morning a little bird on the road
Perhaps shot
through the hole by its eye
Turning it over, I touch yellow breast down

Then, quickly
a bird shadow passes over my head

Crumpled in my hand
the warm body and cold feet
as I walk along the stream
now has become more precious

I keep it in a piece of paper for the whole month
I open it from time to time
Both eyes have sunk, dried and hardened
I still manage to open the wings
it shapes flight with a white band stretching diagonally
wing to wing

Then, again, quickly,
a bird shadow passes over my head
Hurrying, I fold it up with the sky

It certainly was your death
I buried you deep in the ground
It turned into something that flaps its wings and flies out
One would because of that sometimes
crook the neck like a bird missing the sky

---

Tanaka Ikuko (born 1937) Japan
Translated by Miho Kinnas and Shelly Bryant
Source: Poetry Kanto