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Shuri Kido
Translated from the Japanese by Tomoyuki Endo & Forrest Gander
For whom is (the evening glow)
                                        "red"?
To human eyes,
                 the red wavelength shimmering in the air
                                                      is reflected,
but to the eyes of birds
which recognize even ultraviolet rays,
the evening glow looks much paler.
And when all the lives on Earth are finally snuffed out,
and the human solstice has passed,
every color will cease to "exist."
As clouds pile up densely above the sea,
kids get restless
feeling some sort of invitation.
On such occasions, when you're unable to read a "book"
while splashing around in the sea or river
as though dancing with water gods,
you'll notice beads of water on your skin
reflecting the world.
In such an optical play,
                     the summer vanishes;
some people have gone off
with the water gods
and have never come back.
Textbooks, left on a desk unopened,
hold on to their tiny equations.


When each and every living thing has lost its life
and there remains not a single being,
for whom is (the evening glow)
                            "red"?




小さな数式

(夕焼け)は、
                               誰にとって“赤い”のか?
人間の目には
                               大気に散乱する
                                                                   赤の波長が届くが
紫外線まで視える鳥たちにとっては
夕焼けとは、もっと蒼ざめたもの。
そして、地上に生命という生命が絶えたとき
あらゆる色彩は
                               「存在」しなくなる
夏至を過ぎると。
海には稠密な雲が積み上がり
何かに誘われているような気がして
子供たちは落ち着かなくなる
そんなときには「本」なんか読めない
海や川で水神と戯れるように
しぶきを上げては
なめらかな肌にまとわりつく(水滴)に
世界を映し取る
その光学的遊戯のうちに
                                                         夏は過ぎ
気がつくと、何人かは
水神とともにどこかへ行ってしまって
二度と帰ってこない
残された教科書は開かれることなく
小さな数式などを隠しつづけるのだろう

タ焼け)は、
                    誰にとって ‘‘赤い" のか?
たとえ生命という生命が絶え、
見る人がひとりもいなかったとLても。
from the book NAMES AND RIVERS / Copper Canyon Press
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Some of Kido’ s poems begin with an ordinary fact, and it incites his poetic imagination. In this poem, he begins with the difference of how light looks to the eye of human and birds, and as we read the poem, we come to share the process of how he comes to the idea of the last line.

Tomoyuki Endo on "A Tiny Little Equation"
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"Limón is writing a new poem that NASA says will be engraved on its Europa Clipper spacecraft, which is expected to launch next year and eventually do several flybys of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa....'The first term was all about figuring out who I was in this public role and what it is I wanted to accomplish. The second term is exciting because it's where the imagination meets reality,'"

via AXIOS
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What Sparks Poetry:
Claire Wahmanholm on "Deathbed Dream with Extinction List"


"I love writing abecedarians. I love that they make me reach for words I would not ordinarily reach for; I love that they gesture at abundance without exhausting it, that they leave more unsaid than said. I love that they open the doors of my existing knowledge and invite me into the dictionary, the thesaurus, the encyclopedia, any number of archives. I love how democratic they are: even the trickiest, least common letter must be used, and the heavy hitters may only appear once." 
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