Poem

Takako Arai

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Colored Glass

I'll raise it in my tummy
I'll break it
Squashing the bitter worm in my teeth
If I swallow it down
I doubt I'll spit out a moth
Or that it'll fly out as a butterfly
I suppose it'll stay a silkworm spitting out silk forever

                         Maybe it'll become a spinning wheel turning its own neck
                    The axle letting out a rhythmic rattle under the sawtooth roof
               Its arm extended as it turns itself
          Its knees shaking ever so slightly

I'll swallow it down
The silkworm
Down the well of my throat
Where it rebounds in the pit of my stomach
This little worm will spit out a lifeline
And crawl from the watery depths
Forgetting its dreams of flying through the air

                        In this strange factory, the worm spins in the spinning wheel
                   The raw silk thread winding around before our eyes
              The scissors slip in, and it is bound up tightly
         Pulse throbbing from the effort

Warawara    Are you inviting the thread?
          Carried away
Somosomo    Are you touching the thread?
          Laughed at
Sawasawa     Are you lining up the thread?
          Slandered
Moshimoshi     Are you resentful of the thread?
          Forgotten
          Extolled
          Untold
Sing: Roll your hands     round and round     pull your eyes flat
          Roll your hands     round and round     pull your eyes flat
          Roll your hands     round and round    pull your eyes out

I swallowed it!
The eternal silkworm
On its mission forever
Crawling through the labyrinth of my bowels
The bitter worm squashed in my teeth
In the rustling thread it spins
It ties itself up
Withdraws
And sleeps

It cannot sleep,
I cannot sleep,
Sing: Roll your hands     round and round     pull your eyes flat
          Roll your hands     round and round     pulled my eyes out
I hold it over my head

                        There is a factory floating like an isle inside
                    It head turns round and round
               While the blind silkworms glow
          Under the colored glass window

© Translation: 2016, Jeffrey Angles
From: Poems of Hiromi Ito, Toshiko Hirata & Takako Arai
Publisher: Vagabond Press, Newtown, Australia, 2016

The poem represents the author\'s reaction to the collapse of the silk and textile industry in her hometown of Kiryū in Gunma Prefecture, once a major Japanese center of textile production. In this poem, Arai imagines a person swallowing a silkworm, which begins to grow and creates its own silk factory inside her stomach. The poem was inspired by the Japanese expression “Nigamushi o kamitubusu” (literally “to squash a bitter bug in your teeth”), which is used to describe someone\'s expression when they are making a frown or grimace. Many of the textile factories in Kiryū had roofs that zigzag up and down like the teeth on a saw, hence the phrase “saw tooth roof” (nokogiri-yane) used in the poem. Glass windows would then be placed on one side of each “tooth” of the roof to let in light. In the final stanza, Arai imagines a mini-silk factory floating in the narrator\'s stomach, the colored glass in the saw tooth roof illuminating the interior. The lines “roll your hands, round and round, pull your eyes flat” (kaiguri kaiguri totto no me) are from a children\'s game. The child rolls their hands around one another as if they are rolling up thread on their hands like a spinning wheel, then after that, they pull at the corner of their eyes. Arai creates a variation on this song, imagining that the narrator pulls her own eyes out.

色硝子

腹のなかで飼うことにするヨ
砕いて、
噛みしめた苦虫だから、
飲ミ込ンじまオ
やがて蛾を吐き出そうとは　思わナイ
蝶になって飛ぼうとも、
糸を吐く　永遠のお蚕さんと、

　　　　　ノコギリ屋根に、首まわす糸車がおりました
　　　　付け根がカタカタ軋(きし)んでいました
　　　片手を伸ばして撚っていました
　　少ぉし、膝が震えていました

飲ンじまオ
お蚕さんを、
喉の井戸を直下して、
ポチャン　と撥ねた鳩尾(みぞおち)から
いのち綱を吐き出して、
這っていく水底を
飛ぶ夢　見ないこの虫ハ、

　　　　　ふしぎな工場の、糸車でまわっております
　　　　みるみる生糸が巻かれていきます
　　　はさみを入れて、綴じもします
　　こめかみに、ドクンと脈が抜けていきます

わらわら　糸を　さそってるの？
　さらわれて
そもそも　糸に　さわってるの？
　わらわれて
さわさわ　糸を　そろえてるの？
　そしられて
もしもし　糸を　うらんでるの？
　うとまれて
　うたわれて　
　うたわれなくて
〽かいぐり　かいぐり　とっとの目
　かいぐり　かいぐり　とっとの目
　かいぐり　かいぐり　とってよ目

飲ンじゃッタ！
永遠のお蚕さんが、
どこまでも　お使いしてル
腸の迷路を這いずって、
噛みしめている苦虫だから、
ざわめく糸を紡いでハ
じぶんを　縛ッて、
こもッて、
眠ッて、

眠られなくて、
眠られなくて、
〽かいぐり　かいぐり　とっとの目
　かいぐり　かいぐり　とったよ目
手をかざし、

　　　　　浮島(うきま)のような工場が、あります
　　　　くるくる首をまわしています　
　　　格子窓の色硝子に、
　　盲らの蚕が、灯っております

Takako Arai

(Japan, 1966)

Quick introduction

Celebrated Japanese poet Takako Arai replied to our invitation to Rotterdam with a poem about her frequent trips to small villages, where she sits on a bench and listens to the voices of old ladies. Everything is poetry to Arai. Her poems are playful, avant-garde and vibrant. They track sounds to their source, express how sounds are made in the body and give them names. In t...