Meeting Mother Poem by Shuntaro Tanikawa

I went alone back to the old days.
Butterflies are fluttering under the cloudy skies of those old days.
A girl is watching them,
sitting all alone on the grass.

When and where did the feeling of loneliness begin?
As I sat beside the silent girl
I watched the butterflies mating.
This girl may have been my mother.

A road no one has ever walked along
vanishes into the horizon.
Only the faint sound of a stringed instrument
links me to this world.

The day when the distant future has become the old days
I'll be here still,
having learned to love
and even to find joy in dying.