15 Haiku in Response to Yukio Mishima’s ‘Spring Snow’

1.
Japan is trembling
Before modernity, as
if before a snow.

2.
Satoko waiting
At the gate, dressed in purple:
Hyacinth in storms.

3.
Leave silence, Kiyo,
Come out from its pallid house,
To the cherry blossoms.

4.
Spring comes: but Kiyo,
Rushing from love and friendship,
Seeks autumn’s silence.

5.
As rain showers pass
So furious passion fades:
Love’s abdication.

6.
Satoko’s obi:
a red serpent, singing
of sweet summer longings.

7.
Honda sees Kiyo
On the beach, in his red cloth:
Seas move in his belly.

8.
The Prince lost his ring,
Then its gem, his beloved:
Loves migrate like birds.

9.
Dead mole in the road:
Cast it away, Kiyo!
Where is its soul now?

10.
Life forms in her belly:
Even by the emperor
Wholly uncontrollable

11.
Blood of a turtle
Passes through unknowing lips
Like a short life’s years

12.
Satoko’s shorn hair
Like a sorrowful monsoon
Falls in thick torrents

13.
Through the early spring
Kiyo moves towards destiny:
A boat of lotus leaves

14.
His heart supplicates
At the feet of Satoko:
Words in weeping wind

15.
Kiyo’s soul is taken
as if by a train in winter:
sleeping migration