Underground - Ito Hiromi

A bond was formed through marriage so in August

I go visit the graves for the Festival of the Dead. Going from the bullet train

To the Chugoku Highway, I move farther and farther away

From Tokyo and my own parents. Around the graves

Brown and green walking-sticks, tiger beetles, and mosquitoes

Proliferate. Different kinds of cicadas too.

The white wooden memorial tablet of my mother

(In-law) stands as it has from the time of her burial

Where my father (in-law) placed it over the gravestone.

The movements of my father (in-law) are sluggish. He washes

The grave with maddening slowness. In the next grave

Are two siblings born a year apart. Two mounds

Of earth pulled over parallel coffins are protected

By a wooden roof that has changed color from the rain.

The mounds of earth softly rot away six years

Of the children’s lives underneath. Someone

Has stuck a yellow school umbrella there. I use their

Posthumous Buddhist names, each with one extra character,

To imagine the real names the two children used for their six years.

My father (in-law) squashes a walking-stick underfoot and

Continues washing the grave. Meanwhile, I think of how

Tokyo, my own parents, my father (in-law), my husband, and

I will lie under this grave.

---

Ito Hiromi (born 1955) Japan

Translated by Jeffrey Angles

Source: Poetry Kanto