Yukiko Inoue

Memphis, Tennessee

Our Gaea's Wail

"And then..." you asked me, gazing at the dying
fire of the candle resting on the table:
"Like the nature of passion, never tiring of eating,
is another virgin forest going to be cleared?"

Closing our faces to clounds of hanging black
grapes, you and I desired a licentious affair.
Fumbling for each other, we drowned in our passion before
falling away beneath the sky of a brilliant night.

God, who gave people leave to march off to war, also
gave them leave to cut down the firewood of passion;
The mountain surface was cleared, exposing red clay,
soon to be bleached from the sunlight's lashing rays.

Standig with you on the earth that is about to be
spoiled, I try to touch the creaking of time.
People, scanning Gaea, turn their faces away, saying
it has nothing to do with them. Sadly true.

On the barren land named "Love," the naked season comes round
and tries to bud. The rain drizzles over Gaea tumid in red,
Can't you hear the wail of Gaea drifting, longing for
the forest where the leaves rustle, and rustled, in the wind?
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