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Pebbles
Wherever I go, pebbles.
There’s no place where you don’t lie about.
Blue lentils, round gravel.
Whichever, seems I've met you before.

Near the roots of weeds white with dust,
around a utility pole, a road marker, along a fence,
smashed by cars, sprung by the hoofs of a draft horse,
trampled under shoes, kicked away by a wooden clog,

but no one pays any mind.
That they treated you cruelly, even that you were there.
By chance, someone may pick you up,
but only so he may capriciously throw you into the distance.

Those like you, in China,
were called “dark people”, were named “black heads”. (1)
Pebbles. You remain in silence,
from century to century, waiting for what?

In which direction are you looking?
You do not answer. But I know.
That after all the clutter’s gone from this earth,
you will be the ones that remain.
© 1923, Mitsuharu Kaneko
From: Dai-furan shuh (Ode to Great Putrefaction)
 
 
 
 
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© Translation: 2008, Hiroaki Sato. Please note that editorial changes made to this translation have not yet been approved by the translator.

Translator's Note: The collection this poem is taken from is based on a manuscript Kaneko left in a streetcar (and lost), in 1923, the year he brought out Koganemushi (Japanese Beetle), his first book published through a commercial house. He must have rewritten or reconstructed most of the poems from memory. Before Koganemushi, he had put together two collections: Kohro (The Censer) was completed in 1916, although it was only published, as part of his 15-volume Complete Works, after his death, while Sekido no ie (The House of Red Clay), was printed at his own expense in 1919. 1. Limin, translated here as "dark people," and qianshou, "black heads," both mean the masses or multitudes, and both words have ancient origins. Mo Tzu (Mengzi), a philosopher of the fourth century BC, wrote that if the ruler and his officials are worthy, "limin do not starve; they do not become cold". The term qianshou, which dates from the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC), is thought to have referred either to those who did not wear hats and therefore exposed their dark hair, or to those who wore black caps.