Tangled Hair/Birth and Death

by Akiko Yosano

Birth and Death

As, ailing,
I moan helplessly,
The primrose beside me
Trembles.

Here in the white hospital room
I seem to be lying in the snow
Or to be buried alive in a cave.

Stranger than the two suns
In the heavens are
The three hearts
Beating in my body.

When the speechless devil,
Like a dark shadow,
Shakes its fist,
The infants in my womb
Bite their mother.

Fighting with its mother and twin sister,
A frail infant has exhausted its strength
And, alas, perishes in my womb.

······

My last child
Clad in his garments
Of pale pink and lavender
Sleeps deep in his coffin.

For my child
Let there be a happier land
Than the little death bed
Encircled by the four panels of a screen.