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   Wide-awake
by Hideo Yokokawa
in memory of Carol Hanley


It is on January 11th. Too wide-awake, can't go to sleep.
Is this because of too many tears I've shed the other day?
Nobody to talk in this mid night. No other choice, I call Phyllis.
She is not available. I leave a message.
"I can't sleep tonight. I just wanted to hear your voice. That's all"
Further, I call Billy but can't get him. Then, Jeanne, in vein too. Why?
My finger dials to Carol in Houston involuntarily.

She died from her breast cancer on the 6th this month.
I am her sister. I am getting back to New York tomorrow. --
Calm, clear and polite answer.

Stupefied with flooded tears,
I wanted to know if the stone seal I made for her was there, but
I didn't ask.
In tears, I read "An Afterimage" which I dedicated to Carol 18 years ago.
She listened to me silently to the end and saidIt's mysterious.

Mutually no words further, in tears.
Hazy voice of other person was heard through the phone.
Then shortly, the battery of my portable handset
pressed to my ear ran down silently.

It was in early July, 2004 that Carol and I talked last, when
she was so fine and in good cheer over the
phone. She left me.

I can't go yet.




An Afterimage
by Hideo Yokokawa
for Carol Hanley


Deep in the mist
Calm in the forest
Who is it
Quietly breathing?

Like flavor of flowers
In the breeze over the field
Who knows you are wherefrom
And where to?

Trustable is
Human mind
But hard to reach it
So formless are you

Eternal is
The instance
Even at
This moment of solemnity
 

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