my heart is weak, but still beats
day and night, still a kind of life
of anticipation

the rainy season seems to be ending
it's a good time for dreaming
(modern literature doesn't do much dreaming
but in classical love stories, it is still life)

i want to advise you to travel, to see seagulls fly,
to stay overnight in an unknown place.
tomorrow i am going to do that,
i am going to stay overnight
in your heart

you may sit by the window, sometimes
rueful as the day darkens.
(you wanted to make a few vows
in cherry blossom season
that weren't yours to make...

and before you could open your mouth,
love had tidied its hair and left)
"anyway, it's all useless" you thought
"i am living," you said, "though i don't know
what for, this is still life..."

this poem is a drawing for you.  a bowl of fruit,
a table in a humble country home,
nothing really above you or better than you,
just an ordinary woman who loves you
who is slightly disembodied in this medium

and if you ever get lost, please remember
the picture that i drew of a stone lantern
it will light your way to a grave on a hillside
without a marker, but you'll know
that it's still me, it's still life