The Field Page

Painting by Catherine Marche


THE FIELD PAGE


You, undulate. You, laugh. You, solidify. And
voice quavering, you go out of the dark walls.
—To which place?

The I of the future was weaving cells in a narrow
room with sounds. The river in the room (there
someone else’s blood) goes on meandering but in the
end never goes outside the walls. In this case, the
walls are effective. But many people are thinking
the opposite: one must show “a merciless attitude
when push comes to shove,” if possible like a fart
released into the field. Did you laugh now?

Listen. What I open is a field page, where “towers
of breasts” rise and I, as kith and kin of a man
with someone else’s blood circulating in him, and
without any responsibility, am listening to a scream
from an ancient age. Or to the melancholy wing-beat
of a corny future cell.

Even if the meandering is a form of humiliation, listen,
have no mercy when push comes to shove! You, undulate.
You, laugh. You, solidify. And voice quavering, you go
out of the dark walls. —To which place?


Akira Tatehata

Translation from Japanese by Hiroaki Sato


Posted over on Poems & Poetics