Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Judy Kendall

print this page

Remembering Kobe

The worst is afterwards,
departing before early light from Kyoto
on what is left of the railway line
to go as far as you can to Kobe,
packs laden with blankets, food, drink, clothes
along the cracked unrecognisable roads,
like Urashima no Ko back from his charmed palace
three hundred years too late,
and the nights turn blacker than you knew they could,
but you must walk still four hours more uphill
to what was once a Kobe university
and spend one hour of greetings how are you
how many are the missing now, the dead?
handing out your gifts of clothing, comfort, bread,
before returning on land now marked with holes and rubble
and no landmarks,
the worst part of all being the last
before the railway line is breached,
when the light runs out
and the torches fight the dark
and you struggle on alone,
trying to keep to the way,
trying to believe that there is a way
back home.

 

Page(s) 15

Back to top