Our Own Love Method
written by: Mayumi Yamamoto
Since we love reading and writing,
she sends me her poems,
every night,
before going to bed.
She has already authored several published collections,
among them,
she sends one to me.
And sometimes the one she has just created and uploaded on her twitter.
How she selects a “tonight special” is a mystery for me.
I don’t ask her, and she doesn’t tell me.
I enjoy her good night poem. But
I sometimes fail to read before falling asleep
due to my irregular sleeping habit—I go to bed sometimes very early.
When I miss the poem,
I miss her.
Some of her poems remind me of Japanese traditional ukiyo-e 浮世絵
(translated as pictures of the floating world in English) such as
“The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife,”
by the Japanese artist Hokusai Katsushika 葛飾北斎 at Edo period.
It is erotic.
The words she selects are sensual and divine, splendid, beautiful, and
solemn.
Also like a vigorous Hindu goddess,
they are religious too.
That brings me a joy.
Pleasure.
Happiness.
Because my vocabulary is limited,
sometimes I do not understand every meaning of her words, and then
I consult a dictionary to find the definition of her words.
This is my process of learning a language that I love. And
that—the process of learning—connects me with her.
When we meet,
she recites her poem in front of me and
I listen to her.
Her language inspires me and
provokes something buried inside me. Then,
I write.
I write something. And,
I show it to her at first. Then,
she helps me to make it more elaborate and refined, and
as beautiful as her poems are.
This is our love language.
Love for reading and writing.
But I have never touched her.
Never smelled her.
Neither has she. And she says,
“I can reach you only through my poems.”
Who on earth is she, then?
I don’t know.
But with a certain reality, she exists in my imagination where
we are always together
in trains
on streets
at a cafe where I read and write
and in my room
even in bed
warming each other
whispering.
This is our method to exchange love.
- A Blooming Grave in My Balcony - May 5, 2024
- Last Conversation with My Daughter - January 19, 2024
- Our Own Love Method - September 2, 2023
