Kuroda Saburo / 黒田三郎 – Ⅱ
Prisoners of an Era
I
Freedom of speech
and freedom of action
are taken from them.
What else
do prisoners have?
Very little,
people say.
A corner of sky
torn from the window,
memory,
and dream.
Who will remember
what happened there?
At the prison gates,
the prisoners take back
what was seized from them,
hats and clothes they recognize.
Joy
The joy
of their release
into a future dreamt through memory.
Who will remember what they’ve forgotten?
And then
disillusionment.
II
When you lose so much as a single marble,
a huge hole opens up in your chest,
but once you’ve forgotten,
the marble rolls out of a dusty cupboard.
It’s only a marble,
but you burst into tears.
Sometimes you don’t even burst into tears,
but the huge hole in your chest fills up.
It feels so ordinary,
so familiar.
Have you ever idly stood
under the trees of the twilit blue boulevard,
on pavement that smells of the gutter,
with a marble in your palm?
III
What is taken is taken.
What is taken back is taken back.
Corpses cover the field.
Flowers bloom in their shadows.
Now happiness fills your heart to the brim.
Freedom glitters in your palm.
What do you have in your heart
that cannot be taken?
What did you have in your hand
that was not taken?
What cannot be taken back?
In those lost days,
behind bars,
what did you tell yourself?
In the crowds of the station,
what did you tell yourself?
And now,
in the midst of your newfound happiness
and freedom,
what can you tell yourself?
I
Freedom of speech
and freedom of action
are taken from them.
What else
do prisoners have?
Very little,
people say.
A corner of sky
torn from the window,
memory,
and dream.
Who will remember
what happened there?
At the prison gates,
the prisoners take back
what was seized from them,
hats and clothes they recognize.
Joy
The joy
of their release
into a future dreamt through memory.
Who will remember what they’ve forgotten?
And then
disillusionment.
II
When you lose so much as a single marble,
a huge hole opens up in your chest,
but once you’ve forgotten,
the marble rolls out of a dusty cupboard.
It’s only a marble,
but you burst into tears.
Sometimes you don’t even burst into tears,
but the huge hole in your chest fills up.
It feels so ordinary,
so familiar.
Have you ever idly stood
under the trees of the twilit blue boulevard,
on pavement that smells of the gutter,
with a marble in your palm?
III
What is taken is taken.
What is taken back is taken back.
Corpses cover the field.
Flowers bloom in their shadows.
Now happiness fills your heart to the brim.
Freedom glitters in your palm.
What do you have in your heart
that cannot be taken?
What did you have in your hand
that was not taken?
What cannot be taken back?
In those lost days,
behind bars,
what did you tell yourself?
In the crowds of the station,
what did you tell yourself?
And now,
in the midst of your newfound happiness
and freedom,
what can you tell yourself?