Frantic Summer · Dazaiosamu
Before High Summer
When things in their surging begin to drycracking like cinders that flare and fadeour fingertips will begin to touch fruits and vegetables gleaming with the sheen of life, dry twigs that will become birds' nests this summerto touch each other's wet hair and still-beating hearts—if not, then for those rainy spells about to die this summerYou look toward a small flock of migratory birds resting and drinking by the lakea few beaks peck lightly amid white feathers and the glint of ripples—Or now, let us selfishly believethey have already flown southForgive meI do not want, in those fierce, abundant, many-colored days,for us to spend whole days facing nothing but walls, windless as the seaThen let our mast breaklet the mottled stern listlet the compass on the table brim forever with the star-like smell of rust When you and I walk through the wilderness in the courtyarddo not be spellbound by the phantom of the lustrous fragrance of flowers yet to bloomnor stare at the mud and clods soon to fill with strengthLet us sink into loss—lost like chrysalises at winter's endbinding ourselves in cocoons before it arrives O swift-drawn summerI do not trust youDo not begin for meEnd for me