Poem
Toshio Nakae
13
My poems arealmost stolen from you;
stolen from the sun,
stolen from the wind,
stolen from the ground,
stolen from the sea.
I have stolen from your poems, too,
Earthlings;
from your streets,
from your rooms,
and, above all, I take something from your body and mind
and share it.
If possible,
I’d like you, too, to steal me,
steal my life
which belongs no one knows to whom.
No one can privatize either our body or our heart,
because we are common property!
Even words cannot be privatized
nor are they private possessions.
All sorts of things are the common property
of hundreds of millions of stars,
although you think
you are on your own.
© Translation: 2007, William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura
13
© 1987, Toshio Nakae
From: Shuukousha tachi (People Launching Out on their First Voyage)
Publisher: Shigakusha, Tokyo
From: Shuukousha tachi (People Launching Out on their First Voyage)
Publisher: Shigakusha, Tokyo
Poems
Poems of Toshio Nakae
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13
My poems arealmost stolen from you;
stolen from the sun,
stolen from the wind,
stolen from the ground,
stolen from the sea.
I have stolen from your poems, too,
Earthlings;
from your streets,
from your rooms,
and, above all, I take something from your body and mind
and share it.
If possible,
I’d like you, too, to steal me,
steal my life
which belongs no one knows to whom.
No one can privatize either our body or our heart,
because we are common property!
Even words cannot be privatized
nor are they private possessions.
All sorts of things are the common property
of hundreds of millions of stars,
although you think
you are on your own.
© 2007, William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura
From: Shuukousha tachi (People Launching Out on their First Voyage)
From: Shuukousha tachi (People Launching Out on their First Voyage)
13
My poems arealmost stolen from you;
stolen from the sun,
stolen from the wind,
stolen from the ground,
stolen from the sea.
I have stolen from your poems, too,
Earthlings;
from your streets,
from your rooms,
and, above all, I take something from your body and mind
and share it.
If possible,
I’d like you, too, to steal me,
steal my life
which belongs no one knows to whom.
No one can privatize either our body or our heart,
because we are common property!
Even words cannot be privatized
nor are they private possessions.
All sorts of things are the common property
of hundreds of millions of stars,
although you think
you are on your own.
© 2007, William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura
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