Ryuta Imafuku (Anthropologist)
I saw a planet of fringes
Full of fine silver tassels
Not for ornament, but as its
True nature.
Fusa, fringe, franja, ange.
Fusatt, fussa, azusa, hanabusa.
Fusa, fuse, tube, kuda.
A fuse blazing with silver flames
Burning up toward the starry void.
Star, stella, constellation.
I know two books which end with the word “star”.
Dante’s Divine Comedy ends with “stella”,
Thoreau’s Walden with “morning star”.
Books ending up with a sigh of the star.
Books yearning for a flicker of the star.
At the limit of the fuse of fringes,
There are mysterious lights of distilled naphtha
Floating on the black sea of Shiranui.
End without end, fringe without fringe, glistening.
You call it constellation, galaxy, genga, gengo,
A milky way of languages.
At the bottom of the limitless night,
A planet of languages
A comet
A supernova
A falling Ikaros of rebellion
Shimmering dark, dark.
December 2017
An improvised poem written and read at Arts Maebashi
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