hito-ra chi-no omote-ni oinu iwashigumo

       --

       people grow old

       on the surface of the earth

       a mackerel sky

       --

       Shunzou Imamura (1928-1990). From "Tsubasa" (Wings), Outekisha, 1978.

       A sky full of cirrocumulus clouds, in an undulating, rippling pattern reminiscent of the scales of a fish, instills a pensive mood upon the poet. The clouds moving through the sky perhaps reminds him of people milling about on the surface of the earth beneath the clouds. His thoughts then turn to the dark world within the earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we all one day return to the earth from which we came, but the process of living and growing old happens almost exclusively on that thin veneer of the earth's surface -- not in the vast subterranean world or the deep, voluminous sky.

       Selected, translated and commented on by Dhugal J. Lindsay

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