kosukemiyata.com (en)Made on 3/22/2011, for those who were affected by the earthquakes and tsunami
When people searched the ruins for signs of life,
a man was looking for other seeds of hope:
five hundred tulip bulbs he'd hung to dry
along the eaves of his deep-rooted home.
So small when imagined in the disaster's shadow,
tonight they still remain to promise growth
and make him dream they'd bloom to bring tomorrow
back (all his clocks have been broken since he lost
his loved ones). We who share his dream shall follow
him forth, and bury our own bulbs to glow
another day: in many different hues,
complexities and forms, they'll mark the roads
for everyone like the tender light of the moon
that is always there and will become round soon.
Born in Japan in 1980, Kosuke Miyata lived in New York since 2003. His poem 'The Fishes' took 3rd place in the English-Speaking Union New York Branch's city-wide college poetry competition in 2004. Another poem, 'Dusk Walk', earned him honorable mention in the Lumina National Poetry Contest in 2006, and He published his first chapbook of poetry in Septebmer that year. He moved to Tokyo in 2007, after finishing a cross-North America ride.
