I Am Completely Different, Kuroda Saburo

I Am Completely Different

 

I am completely different.
Though I am wearing the same tie as yesterday,
am as poor as yesterday,
as good for nothing as yesterday,
today
I am completely different.
Though I am wearing the same clothes,
am as drunk as yesterday,
living as clumsily as yesterday, nevertheless
today
I am completely different.

 

Ah ...
I patiently close my eyes
on all the grins and smirks
on all the twisted smiles and horse laughs---
and glimpse then, inside me
one beautiful white butterfly
fluttering towards tomorrow.

 

~ Kuroda Saburo ~

 

 

(translated by James Kirkup, Burning Girraffes: Modern and Contemporary Japanese Poetry)