Autumn decreed, "Shed your golden tears, my trees."
The trees, in myriad hues,
Painted their foliage, sending it adrift
Upon the wind's breath—swirling, shattering
Into a thousand fragments.
Why such submission?
Why this deep-seated compulsion to obey?
To our surprise, Autumn's voice echoes within us, revealing our inner selves.
Why does it now whisper its secrets,
As the wind sighs aimlessly,
A nascent resentment stirs.
Loneliness pervades,
A palpable sense of ending,
I hear the inexorable tread of approaching footsteps.
I yearn
To cling to your name,
Only your name echoes in the encroaching darkness,
And I murmur that name,
Like a prayer breathed into the darkness.
Yet to speak that sacred name,
How long must I endure, to finally call it forth with a clear, untrammeled voice?
If I were to beseech a gift,
It would be your radiant smile,
Simply laughing with unbridled joy,
Like the intoxicating fragrance
Of a pristine Casablanca lily.
What preparations have I made?
To invoke your name,
To pray for the luminescence of your smile,
To lose myself within the depths of your eyes,
But my voice is now a hoarse whisper.
Autumn descends, and people stand at their respective thresholds,
Autumn's advent batters tempestuously at the door.
Autumn descends, and at that liminal space, people hesitate,
Autumn's arrival urges them to begin their winter's vigil.
In this, my mature autumn, if I had the power,
To gild the threshold to winter,
To wear a radiant smile,
To sprout burnished wings,
And offer you my heart, utterly,
With only that as my supreme joy.
The tender warmth of the one
Who abides by my side in silent companionship,
I bow my head in deepest gratitude,
For that cherished name that anchors
Me to this fleeting world, before I fade into the boundless wind.
As if for the very first time,
Let me utter it—
Joy blooms, a smile dawns,
Beloved, radiant.
【Japanese version】