Natsuko Hirata

A Battlefield
 
Arms dealer 
          appreciates Graves 
                           between 
graves,
 
cluster amaryllis. 
 
 
 　Cigarettes scattered.
  Crumbled commands.  
 
Soldiers' brains were crying, 

 
 
Vanished views.
 
 
The vernal equinox. 
 
 
A man concealed prose; 
it never reached his lover.



Skyscraper's Stonecrop

Irregular row of 
             sakura 
                on a skyscraper roof garden.
 
                   Trees know breeze. 
                                       Secret treats.
 
Vending machines are 
              vertical coffins, 
                     Festival music from 
                               faraway Mycenae. 
 
Butterflies' 
brilliant 
flightline.
 
            Bones
            or blood 
            under 
            broadleaf stonecrop.
 
You, 
the closest, 
the farthest.
 

Natsuko Hirata is a resident of Tokyo, She is the editor of Quince Wharf, an e-journal that includes translations into Japanese of poetry in English. She has done translations of the work of Sandy McIntosh and Thomas Fink, and she is currently studying poem writing with Thomas Fink.

Her poetry has appeared in the Marsh Hawk Review, Otoliths, and BlazeVOX.
 
 
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