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Happy New Year!
Happy Birthday!
In the afternoon
Dec. 31st, 1981,
To celebrate New Year
And my 59th birthday, Jan. 1st,
I clean a window glass with vinegar.
Why “Happy New Year”?
Because I clean a window glass.
As a grammar school kid
I cleaned the windows of classrooms.
As a teenage worker
I cleaned the office windows.
As a soldier
During wartime
I cleaned the windows of barracks.
After the war
I cleaned many windows of offices, factories and houses.
Today-----
To celebrate New Year
And my 59th birthday
I clean a window glass with vinegar.
All your lifetime
Even after your death
You clean windows with vinegar.
The world needs window cleaners
Hi, Nanao,
The world needs you!
Through the window
Through leafless Gambel oaks
Through freezing, pure, transparent air
I catch a glimpse of a large hawk.
“Rough-legged Hawk”--I’m sure,
Winter visitor from
Alaska.
Hi, Rough-legged Hawk!
You, tireless, fearless flier!
You know nothing about your birth
You know nothing about your death.
You just soar, glide, hover.
And also
You are a window cleaner.
With each flapping
You clean the winter sky.
In your wake
No dust
No junk.
You just leave
Clear, sweet, profound blue sky for everybody.
The world needs window cleaners.
Hi, Rough-legged Hawk,
The world needs you!
Happy New Year!
Happy Birthday!
UNDATED
From Break the Mirror, by Nanao Sakaki, Blackberry Press,
Nobleboro,
Maine,
© Nanao Sakaki 1996. First published in 1987 by North Point Press.
At about 4 a.m., December 23, 2008 in Japan (11 a.m.
December 22 in
California
), Nanao Sakaki passed away in Oshika-mura (Little
Deer
Village
), in the southern
Japan
Alps in
Nagano
Prefecture.
He was 85 years old. During the past several decades he visited
California
often, read
and sang his poems, and worked to save rivers and coral reefs from
destruction. |
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