So I'll warm myself up with Mr. Miyazawa.
Now, I'm going to read a few poems
from a manuscript in progress.
It's going to be a cycle of 12 poems named
for the months entitled Six Years.
12 poems, all of them most flatly and most concretely
based on my physical experience in Japan.
And I think I'll read three of these.
The first one is titled "February."
Water taps running, the sun part out,
cleaning house, sweeping floor, knocking cobwebs
off the shoji, pap, pap.
Wiping the wood and the mats with a wet rag,
hands and knees on the veranda.
Cat prints, make them a footwiper of newspaper.
Wash the motorcycle.
Fold clothes.
Start a new fire under the kama.
Fill Mrs. Hosaka's kerosene stove tank.
Get the cat hairs out of the kotatsu.
Take the sheets in from the bamboo poles
where they are drying.
Put away poles.
Stand them up below the eaves and tie them with strings.
Scrub out the floor of the bath and move the mirror and towel
rack.
Sweep out the genkan footprints.
Oil the clutch cable of the motorcycle through the oil
nipple under the handle grip.
Take off sweater now because it's too hot.
Put back on the denim jacket.
Work.
Nansen mews angrily because he feels so sick.
All the different animals are persons.
What will I do about liberation?
6:40, bath.
Charcoal, black, the fire part, red, the ash, pure white.