Page 5 - Contrast1979v22n2
P. 5
-Spring Snow Beth Lengyel
for Ykio Mishima Dreaming of your own coffin
pearls on leopard skin
Already it is getting late
as pale light falls you had the courage of words
beyond Kiyoaki and Satoko the movement of action
playing sugoroku
And is not the Emperor really a god?
fragile as summer insects Answering the crumbling world
youth is their real beauty you paid a last homage to St. Sebastian
The pond is no longer smooth the vicious splendour of seppuki
it shows the lines of ages Mishima
it shows the brittle autumn approaching Later you look back at the bending wind
dusting the plain of Yamatio with snow flakes
flakes of snow dancing your footprints disappearing in the spring snow
in the wind
on the plain of Yamatio Sugoroku-Japanese game similar to backgammon
Seppuki-Japanese ritual suicide
AndSatoko Yukio Mishima-J apanese writer who committed ritual
is she wearing French perfume again?
Do the wrinkles of her turning dress suicide in the early 1960' s.
define the coming years? Ian Durant
At the court of Kyoto 3
a waterfall of colour bursts
with bustling figures in a crowd
cherry blossom in bloom
always suggests simile
