Hagi Yaki _ a poem by Yuri Kageyama

My mother died a long time ago

But she talks to me a lot lately

Like this morning

When I arrange the branches found

In her Hagi Yaki vase;

I hear her voice,

As clear as yesterday:

“He already totally forgives you,”

“Mou zenbu yurushiteruno,”  

About my longtime partner,

A remark,

The significance of which

I’m just

Gradually

Starting to Understand,

So many, many years later,

Maybe because now I’ve

Finally entered that stage

When I am going to join them all  

Soon

On that other side,

Eternal and perfect,

Forgiving all.

>___<

The vases in the photo are a part of my parents’ Hagi Yaki collection that I was lucky enough to inherit. My father worked as an engineer at IHI and NASA but took early retirement and became a professor at Yamaguchi University in Ube, a long skip from Tokyo. But they were the happiest they had ever been there. They became friends with the Hagi Yaki artists, because Hagi is relatively near Ube, and got their artworks straight from the “kama,” or the oven where the pottery is baked, eliminating the middle-men, i.e., discount prices from National Treasures. The vases remind me of how beauty _ and love _ can endure over the passage of time and spaces.