Don't Bundle Me

Shinkawa Kazue


Don't bundle me

like gillyflowers

like white scallions.

Please do not bundle me. I am ears of rice,

the golden ears of rice that scorch the chest of the great earth

in the fall, as far as the eye can see.


Don't pin me down

like an insect in a specimen box

like a postcard arrived from the highlands.

Please do not pin me down. I am flapping my wings,

am the sound of invisible wings

ceaselessly touching, feeling the expanse of the sky.


Don't pour me

like milk diluted by dailiness

like lukewarm sake.

Please do not pour me. I am the sea,

the bitter tides the rimless water

that rises vastly at night.


Don't name me

daughter wife.

Please do not keep me sitting

in the seat set up in the ponderous name of mother. I am a wind,

a wind that knows the apple tree

and where the fountain is.


Don't partition me off

with commas and periods into several sections.

And please do not fussily write me off

like a letter that comes with "Good-bye" at the end. I am a sentence with no end,

a line of poetry that, like a river,

continues to flow and expand.