Blossoms that scatter

Cherries in bloom that the air raid spared

blue sky above them fallen petals jumbled

for a background the gutted ruins of reality

and the pitiful people who cannot look up to them

bitter are their long wanderings

the road of parent and child

amid the waves of little shacks, flowers in bloom

cherry blossoms—is theirs the hue of dawn?

Ah, there is a simile in this existence

men of power and men of peace

“blossoms that scatter, blossoms that remain

to become blossoms that scatter"—so sings a man

blossoms of youth, how many million—

why must they scatter? why must they scatter?

In distant southern seas, ill-fated cherries

full bloom not yet on them, their branches are in pain

and my friends remaining, their hearts, before we know it,

wounded by the loss of the world of the ideal

Are all things impermanent? are they eternal?

without even knowing, must we scatter?

Blossoms that scatter, blossoms that remain,

bloom forever, in spring send out your fragrance on the storm!

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Written in April 1945, shortly before Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II, when the author was seventeen. This translation, by Burton Watson, first appeared in Songs from My Heart (1978).