Yellow Sorry - Yuka Tsukagoshi

Blight blight borderline
I've been given a yellow apology.

Today, I jumped onto a train
wanting to catch the beginning of something.
In my reflection in the window, the landscape
unchanging, streams past.
I watch the outline of mountains

That can become anything
if I can catch a beginning.
Beneath dark blue and gray sky,
they say time condenses
like the lines between the eyebrows
of the older ladies sitting across from me.
That crack casts a face of light
for the blink of a moment.

In a shiny, liquid night
old ladies furrow their brows together
their humped backs getting more round.

Near the horizon blurred with snow
beyond the plain of scattered black naked trees,
a blue cloud like a thin thought
floats as if it were hammered there with nails.
In the window ahead of me it's floating
coming in and out of view between gray buildings.

The unchanging blue scenery
makes me anxious.
The part between the sky and the mountains
turning pale pink
also makes me anxious.

It hurts to capture a beginning, they say
eyes start to water
ears groan with a dense hum.
Beginning is painful
the inner folding, the furrows.

And then, all of sudden,

light gathers
lights of the end
grow bright, bright
light falls on light
washing away me and the mountains
a beginning comes closer
luminously closer and is
swallowed.

The trees slice through the sun.
Cut it
completely.
The resistance of the landscape lost.
Filled with so many emotions
shadow shadow shadows saying something to me
but I can no longer hear.
As I gently take one shadow out and put it on,
it fits my skin completely.

Sorry sorry
to make you wait.
Sorry sorry
you couldn't realize until you lost it.
The wrinkles between brows become stretched out, the angle changed
and a beginning ends.
The trees making love with the sky also end.

When I'm reflected in the window again, I'll be smiling, slightly.

Homecoming.
A plane is flying.

---

Yuka Tsukagoshi (20th century) Japan
Translated by Yuka Tsukagoshi and Judy Halebsky
Source: Big Bridge