- Misako Takahashi
A Walker at Night
Her fingers quiver
carrying the smell of cardamom,
the scent of icy forest floors.
She wavers and totters
as dying leaves shiver in white shadows,
her arms stretching out,
desperate for dews.
Running after the figure
in eternal blueness
broken by silver birches,
I search for a cave--
but whether she needs one
I do not know.
Twigs of larches and her hair,
her bare neck mirroring
the frozen sky,
she eats a patch of bark.
When I stumble on a root and weep
the moon throws light on her cheeks dry,
her eyes roaring,
screaming.
Is it her heart thumping
or the river that keeps the rhythm,
or is it only silence
that fills her dreaming body.
If she reaches waters,
the flow that revives her lungs,
the pressure that embraces her breasts,
will they keep her frame from falling apart--
I never know.