A River in Summer

If no one is looking, I cannot get in.

[A dead bird]
[A bird in various colors]

If no one is looking.

A bush warbler (It chirps for a while, its sound echoing across the valley,
Then comes out as if goading me on. Its head turned to the side, it stares at me
With its left eye. It has come to stare at me with its left eye.

I am not a bird, so I cannot chirp like you.
Those days, “I walked through the mountains, trapped in doubt and anxiety and who I am”
I walked through the mountains. A bush warbler, olive in color, appeared in the fresh green
Of the beech forest. Right then, the withered, brown leaves the ground
Were shifting quietly, just as a shower was about to begin. I was all alone
So there was no one to warn me, and if I got fed up and
Let myself get sopping wet, there was no one to say a word.
I moved quietly, and the shower began. Little drops. Of rain
Turned into big drops, and began to pound down from the side
But before that,

If no one is looking.

Things that had seemed rather strange to me suddenly took on a clear form
And appeared before me. The things that been pent up like a dam
Became clear and at that moment, they appeared before my eyes.
So people could see them, so they could be seen, so people would see them for me.

That’s why I was dressed for the rain. I stopped in the middle of the sloping road,
Right in the middle. Wearing bluish-green Gore-Tex raingear, top and bottom, boots too. If you open the zipper at the bottom of the legs,
You can put on the pants without removing your boots, that zipper is the one that
Bit into the Gore-Tex on the surface, into the cloth, biting into it so it would not move, I tried pacifying it
Coaxing it, appeasing it,

When I’m walking alone, I feel as if I’m so transparent
That people can see right into the innermost core of my heart.

(A May forest that seems to be dreaming)

Okay, so I’m decked out in my raingear, but I can’t find the cover for my backpack, I’ve got the bag I usually keep it in,
But the cover for the backpack itself is gone, should I just continue on (leaving things as they are)?
I struggle with this feeling as I look through the messed up contents of my backpack, searching through one thing at a time,
Searching,

I am transparent to my very core.

“I felt as if that gaze as it was following along, I felt it until it shifted away from that long peak”

There is a conversation between signs—signs that see and are seen yet still remain invisible.
Lead by the spirits of the trees, I entered into the forest deep at night

The nighttime forest plants released the scent of sperm
As they made love. The spirits
Are different than humans. The spirits of the trees
Are alive, just like birds, fish, plants, and cats
Are alive. In the tepid, misty rain,
I held my breath and looked up at the black branches. All the trees
A fish leaping
What was I so surprised?
Just the sound of a fish splashing in the pond.
A stray male passes through the early summer forest
A stray male? The eastern sky
Grows light,
Before it grows light,

(My own morning
Will begin, despite all that happened,
Something new will start again right now

There was this enormous tulip tree, you see,
And it was in full bloom, branches covered
With yellow flowers. I got completely nervous
At the sight of this tulip tree in the morning
How strange to get so nervous, really
Really strange, isn’t it?

Like getting loose. Like getting all limp and loose.

I know.
That feeling, you’ve still got it, don’t you?

(The tulip tree.
Coffee in June.

—The river begins,
The flow of water from the falls noisily repeats its invitation to the river. A turtle
Climbs upon a pole to a sunny spot, the red flower of a lotus blossom
Blooms profusely, belonging to early summer

Being seen,

That’s right, being seen, the river
Flows forth,

A RIVER IN SUMMER