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Title: A Japanese Mother
Author: Cale Young Rice [
More Titles by Rice]
(IN TIME OF WAR)
The young stork sleeps in the pine-tree tops,
Down on the brink of the river.
My baby sleeps by the bamboo copse--
The bamboo copse where the rice field stops:
The bamboos sigh and shiver.
The white fox creeps from his hole in the hill;
I must pray to Inari.
I hear her calling me low and chill--
Low and chill when the wind is still
At night and the skies hang starry.
And ever she says, "He's dead! he's dead!
Your lord who went to battle.
How shall your baby now be fed,
Ukibo fed, with rice and bread--
What if I hush his prattle?"
The red moon rises as I slip back,
And the bamboo stems are swaying.
Inari was deaf--and yet the lack,
The fear and lack, are gone, and the rack,
I know not why--with praying.
For though Inari cared not at all,
Some other god was kinder.
I wonder why he has heard my call,
My giftless call--and what shall befall?...
Hope has but left me blinder!
[The end]
Cale Young Rice's poem: Japanese Mother
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