Takarabe Toriko / 財部鳥子 – Ⅲ

 The Water and Mongolia 

 

 

When I drink water, I wouldn’t think of the sea.

I just stand in my kitchen,

looking up at the dirty blue ventilator.

 

I wouldn’t feel, in my mind or on my back,

estuaries, inlets, or roaring waves in the distance.

I wouldn’t think

that in the Mongolian grassland that resembles a sea,

in a pao in its midst,

there, too, is a TV. I wouldn’t think

that almost all of the human body is made of water.

I wouldn’t think the soul is made of water.

 

When I drink water

a sheep runs down my windpipe

like a brush of pianissimo.

At that moment my healed flesh

will give itself a tremble.

But when the water passes down my throat,

I wouldn’t think of a Mongolian man following his sheep.

 

When you drink water, you wouldn’t think of

a Mongolian man, either.

You wouldn’t think

that simply because the sound of your throat echoes,

the Mongolian man, in his long sheepskin boots,

walks down to the water’s edge, in large strides.

 

Walk, walk, to where the water shines.

When a wind blows across the withered grassland along the water’s edge,

the grass bends, flowing low, flowing low, just like sheep

asleep.

The withered grass rebels against the wind and stirs,

that quick, soft leap

of that stirring, moving sound! No, you wouldn’t think of such a thing,

when the water passes down your throat.

 

Simply from a transparent glass

you drink water single-mindedly.

That’s of course what you do.