An Intercepted Message

(The copyright rests with Compri.)

Dear Friends,

I've consciously chosen not to think about the nuclear situation too much, for my own mental health...but perhaps this is a bad sign. Maybe I should be protesting in the streets to demand that Tepco immediately borrow the robots from France AND bury the reactors under a giant concrete dome immediately (Tepco will go bankrupt, but who cares! it deserves to go bankrupt). Hmm..it's a thought.

I'm actually going to Vancouver tomorrow for an ACLA (American Comp Lit Assoc) conference, planned long before. I'm still on page 3 of my paper/presentation...and it's hard for me to concentrate but I'll need to finish this somehow tonight. I will be back in Tokyo next Tuesday. When I'm back, I will think about taking it to the streets (I'm half-joking, half-serious...) and let's have a meal together.

Warmly,

Compri

Three Lines

Illuminate, in the name of a candle

Surround, as a leafy afternoon might

Run, in the happiest moments of life

To Hope

to hope

In a time of crisis

Spilling Dua

Have you not heard of the compass, or seen a weather vane

On a roof?

Let us not ignore the thousands and millions of people who have traveled

Before us, eastward and westward, between north and south

In search for another world, old or new.

Their travels have shaped, whether you like it or agree with it,

The various connotations to which the compass needle must submit.

There are also eastward and westward winds as well as ocean currents,

That have defined trade routes and many a

Romance.

Alongside nature, there is history that spills out

Into our unconscious: footprints in the rain.

Spilling

How can you group together all the jostling and almost exploding

Nations within nations within nations into a hollow concept such as

East Asia?

Where is east for you? and west?

Up and down just mean sky and earth, for me, and

East and west just mean sunrise and sunset, for you, too

Because everywhere, there is sunrise and sunset.

Why, the milk spills over and over:

No time to cry.

Spring

Am I allowed to blame the pollen allergies for the fatigue:

Eyes glazed, phone uncharged, and incredible boredom?

Until the day I met you, pollen,

Boredom, I knew I had never experienced.

The reeling, lilting fatigue feeds my unfounded reluctance

For medical treatment.

And there, again, the headache makes me spin

Until I am so unsure of myself

I have just barely enough strength to sit and stare

At cold and unflinching spring.