Coming back to an old house and shuffling through the rooms can uncover things long forgotten. Earlier today I found an old copy of Poetry Tokyo, No. 2 from Autumn 1987. There were translations of Hiraide Takeshi and Yoshioka Minoru (both of whom have been translated by Eric Selland, but in this case the translations were by Robert W. Leutner and James R. Morita respectively). There was also an old poem of mine, "Inside Room," written as my wife Yoshie and I were thinking about moving from Japan to ... it ended up to be Vancouver but we did not know that when I was working on this poem.
.
Your absence wants
a space to fill –
this claim too much
you stay an empty room
inside your self.
Stay past our decision
to leave. Cherishing
the debt we owe
each other. Another’s
place to hide. The rain
silt fills the room
with dust white
as skin powder.
Your body grubs
and curling in lacks
moisture from the air.
*
“I love you” a claim
or statement of desire
a wish for peace.
Holding back your name,
as the sky will not,
I breathe carefully.
Carefully let down the
Blinds and the room
Is shadowed as your breath.
A gesture at least,
beyond us, beyond
holding – held.
The other’s sky not
Our freedom of speech.
Whistling clean. Waiting.
Wanting to go on,
to know you too
will stay.
