Burning a Light at Night

As a silkworm spins its cocoon
I spin my own night
I reel off the night to build a room
Under the deep-violet-colored starry night
I burn a light just for myself
and build a small egg-shaped world

The daytime is there for everybody
That’s when I work forgetting everything
At night everyone recedes to distant places
All things visible become invisible
and for pampered me
gently thoughtfully melt into the darkness

Inside a world for myself alone
I gleam just as mosses and fireflies do
Wishing to live out a good life
to deepen my heart’s desire to yearn for the beautiful
I weave a few quiet lines
with my fingers still soiled from my daytime work

A drop of my nightly world,
my small solitary world with my own light on,
my egg-shaped world for recollections and wishes,
a quiet pathway I take all alone between today and tomorrow –
it filters the painful fevers from my daytime self
to make me into a crystalline droplet

夜に燈ともし

夜に燈ともし