世の枝

ｆｏｒ 明世

Never before this morning did you realize
that the pools of rain, collecting in the mud,
made cute, mockingly little faces at any one in trouble--
as though it were a duty of this world's depressions
to show both man and woman the ease of fullness.

Always you find the world beginning to brighten in pieces:
a wind falling through the spaces left by buildings,
lullabye fragments opening out from the echoes of the unexpected
encounters with people that you will never see again--
you trust that they are there.

Now this hunger takes in its hands your words
and strews them evenly upon the branches of this world
so that you cannot say from which leaf the sound came--
only the rush of this singular chorus comes to you,
and sometimes, if you listen, you take part.