Translated by Louise Heal Kawai and Matt Treyvaud

THIRTY-THREE
CENTIMETRES OF TIME

You cross the road
and follow the low stone wall to school
my child

I watch

You greet the people you meet
and, just about to disappear,
you turn your head a shade,
glance back

I wave,
and open a window

You turn your back.
I watch you walk away

But then
look back again

Perhaps
You knew your father would be watching still

Growing smaller, fading—

I wave to you again,
my child
you walk on, even smaller now

No satchel
on your back
but dressed for ceremony: white shirt
black shorts—
a special day

Before you left this morning, you said, “Look,”
and held up

A red ribbon.
The school nurse made one
for each of you

To show how much you’d grown
between first grade
and sixth:
A length of red ribbon
dangling from your fingers.

We spent
the same
time
separately

Thirty-three centimetres
of time

*

THE MOMENT WE WISH IT

How well I know
the things they call impossible
can change, one day, to done

I still believe the dream:
within the next ten years,
all island bases gone

Until the wall collapsed, no one
believed that it would fall
But who now still believes
that it never will be gone?

The moment we wish it
the bases will be gone
leaving grassy hilltops—
you’ll sit, and freely watch
the setting of the sun

I still believe the dream
that what they called impossible
will change, one day, to done
And who then will believe
that they never will be gone?

akehiro shirai time