Wanting To Be Walking Among Crowds

by Sakutaro Hagiwara

Sakutaro Hagiwara

I always want the city,
want to be inside the lively crowds of the city.
Crowds are things like huge waves with emotions.
They are groups of vigorous wills and desires pouring into every place.
Oh in the plaintive twilight of spring,
to want the shade between building and building in the complicated city,
to go along tossed about inside the huge crowds, how joyful it is.
Look, this sight of crowds that go flowing by.
One wave overlapping upon another wave,
the waves making innumerable shadows, and the shadows move on swaying.
The distress and sorrows of each one of the people all
disappear there among the shadows, leaving no trace.
Oh with how tranquil a mind I go walking along this street.
Oh this joyful shadow of the great love and innocence.
The sensation of being carried along beyond the joyful
waves becomes almost like weeping.
In the desolate twilight of a day of spring,
these groups of lovers swimming under the eaves from building to building,
where and in what way do they go flowing along I wonder?
My sorrowful gloominess is covered up in the one big
shadow on the earth, flowing waves of the drifting innocence.
Oh I want to go on being tossed by these waves of crowds
no matter where, no matter where.
Waves far ahead on the horizon look indistinct.
Toward one, only one direction, let me flow along.





Last updated January 14, 2019