I have memories of
buying a sheet of beautiful ocean.
In a market with a ceiling of blue sky
I happened to see a man selling oceans
who, like a carpet merchant, was spreading them out and rolling them up, spreading them out and rolling them up,
though like a landscape seen in an afternoon nap
I can't clearly remember what the market was like.
I was able to
go to the ocean, without drowning, balanced,
because like a vessel just launched
I had a brilliantly drawn waterline.
But that lasted only for a while.
When we moved, I rolled it up again
and put it in the shed behind our new house
along with junk and forgot about it.
From the crack by the door of the shed a seagull
suddenly flew up this morning, flapping its wings, to my consternation.
Reviving at this late date — what can I do?
What can I do with the ocean
that has started flooding the backyard
without even giving me time to redraw the waterline that has peeled off?
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem