Snow
Hiromi Ito
As I follow with my eyes a dotted trail of footprints
I found that a rabbit had been killed
Continuing straight is the fox, I am told
Feet together pause feet together pause goes the rabbit
‘Feet together pause’ and ‘continuing straight’ intersected
and
Had become ‘continuing straight’
There was no blood anywhere
‘Feet together pause’ didn’t even put up a fight
I am barefoot
I removed my shoes and removed my socks
It was all laid bare
You watch this
When I removed my shoes and socks
There was hair growing on my toes
I was bleeding between the toes
You watch this too
I write
You watch this too
I think I would like to show this to you
You write too
I watch this
A man with such beautiful handwriting
I think
What a beautiful
man, men, women
You finish writing and put it away
With no intention of showing it to me
You put on your shoes
And set out to cross the snowy field
I remain here
If ‘feet together pause’ in a snowy field
Is destined to get caught by ‘continuing straight’
This must be referring to a
Morning
Where the light spreads
Translated by Sawako Nakayasu
Hiromi Ito - Hiromi Ito, Born in 1955 in Tokyo, is one of the most prominent women writers of contemporary Japan, with more than a dozen collections of poetry, several works of prose, numerous books of essays, and several major literary prizes to her name. Ito became well known in the 1980s for a series of dramatic collections of poetry that described sexuality, pregnancy, and feminine erotic desire in dramatically direct language. From her earliest work, Ito embarked on a lifelong battle against the stylized and artful language common in 20th-century Japanese poetry. Much of her poetry is narrated in extended passages of relatively colloquial text. Her poems so skillfully represent spoken language that they often give the illusion of being records of spoken speech. Not coincidentally, commentators have often praised for her ability to channel voices onto the page.
