The Sward of Life Poem by Shuntaro Tanikawa

Because music never ends,
I cannot stay here.
I walk across the sward of life
beyond the starry horizon.

Mom will leave here some day;
and Dad, too, some day, with his cane,
will leave for his hometown,
leaving behind a memento―fingerprints on an empty glass.

I think that's fine,
Because everything is beautiful.
Nothing ever ends.
Wild flowers picked along the roadside are already just a fond memory.

I came back from my long journey─
‘goodbye' becoming ‘hello'─
holding invisible souvenirs,
with my unborn younger sister.