Ishigaki Rin / 石垣りん – Ⅱ

Clumsy Painting 

 

 

 

I’ll give you this painting.

 

It’s no good

but I put my heart into it.

 

The road you see in the distance,

that’s where

my feelings are;

 

beyond it opens a sky

of lavender and rose,

that’s the sky, a beautiful sky I once saw

 

the lake supporting them

and the blue promontory jutting into the lake,

all this is a landscape

I saw, have treasured and loved.

 

The painting’s so clumsily done

I’m too embarrassed to give it to you;

but you say you want it.

 

No, it’s no good,

I insisted,

but it occurred to me

that I’ve held on to such perversity

all my life,

so I decided to give it to you.

 

That’s right—

to say it’s no good and I look bad,

that’s throwing up a façade,

holding back and being vain at the same time;

behind it all

I secretly love

nonetheless

those objects I painted,

that I love

every one of them—

that’s what I definitely think.

 

It too reminds me

of my past;

if evening falls in this painting,

even if winter comes in this painting

and the trees are bared,

ah, I love it,

I’m still in love—

that’s how I feel,

that’s all, that’s all.

 

Like my past, clumsily done,

it’s no good, but I put all my heart

into painting it.