Dear Friends,
You make me want to be a better woman.
Thank you

With the melody of a violin
you pick the strings of my heart
But you are not here.

In the warmth of the sun
I am close to you.
But you are not beside me.

Stepping on the fallen leaves,
I hear your voice
in the rustling sounds.
----- I am all by myself
under the stripped ginkgo tree.

In the aroma from our teacups
I am talking of my world,
watching orchids bloom,
hearing water fall.
And you are facing me
in a dream.

In the paintings of Renoir
I see my poems;
Bouquets, girls, women, family ---
Ordinary moments and usual scenes.

In the touches of Laurencin
I feel my poems;
Pink, white, purple, blue green, gray ---
Blurred, half-transparent, drifting.

The gates snapped open.
The eighteen horses dashed out
into the track.

The horses galloping on the grass.
Kicking off the solid soil in the dust,
in the fastest track,
in their last big race of the year.
The brown luster of the horses, white painted fences,
orange blocks of mums ... all streaming away ...,
streaming round twice in a whirlwind.

Their gallop quaked the earth.
The earth shook spectators' spirits.
A roar filled the autumn sky of Kyoto.

The leading horse running away like a gale,
racing away from the other seventeen.
The jockey standing in the saddle,
hopping above the horse's back,
bending himself at right angles.
Gazing at the goal through his goggles.

Again, a roar echoed.
A paper storm arose.
Empty tickets clasped, torn,
thrown up into the feverish air.

Yellow and purple roses blossom
on the black cloth.
They fade and shine,
twist and stretch,
to the movements of the dancer.

The shawl clings to her shoulders,
its tassels slashing the air with pale orange.
The naked legs flash inside her orange ligerie,
crossed and parted under the skirt.
The red high heeled shoes kick the air,
flung about on the small wooden stage.
The castanets in her hands clap
to the pounding of the percussionist's palms.
The cracked voice of the female singer evokes
the smell of the parched soil under the blazing sun.
The guitarist picks the strings of agitation,
holding his instrument in his arms.

Her flaring skirt revolving and revolvng,
flickering her raised legs tangled with the lingerie.

Ole!

A leaf falls, another follows,
parting from their native boughs.

A wind passes.

Golden threads flow,
streaming down along the knobby trunk.
A yellow curtain flutters
for a moment
under the half-stripped ginkgo.

Wing-like leaves reel, drift,
play in the rustling sounds,
chatting in a dry pile.
For hundreds of years . . .

Winter falls.

Inside the frame, the gate,
the graduation of
pale green, yellow, yellow orange, orange,
orange red, true red, deep red, deepest red . . . .

The Pavilion reflects
the last glow of Friday afternoon.
The Chinese phoenix glitters on the golden roof,
spreading its wings wide.

Mandarin ducks dot on the other side of the pond,
like these moments punctuating my routine.
Carp splash on the surface of the rippled water,
trembling our inner voices of creation.

A leaf falls from a twig,
another leaf onto the spongy moss.
Here is Buddhism, peace ---

The gaiety of school excurtion
passes, fading away to the exit,
leaving deepest autumn behind.

Cyclamens bloom
with five petals inside out,
like fire flaming in the hearth,
like butterflies seeking honey to suck.