Oh! Mosquitoes, mosquitoes, my backyard mosquitoes!
Buzzing melodies moving around my neck tickle a vague nostalgia
For Mishima's shabby neighborhood in some good old days Japan,
Even though the houses and streets were cited as ruined slum
Inhabitants were cheerful and cooperative, but living in poverty,
Scorching summer evenings, adults gathered under loofah trellises
Where they played chesses sitting on benches as fanning themselves,
Children hung joss stick fireworks on bended knees each other
While mosquitoes stung around from the skin to skin mercilessly,
Nevertheless people credited mosquitoes with a poetic subject.
Oh! Mosquitoes, mosquitoes, my backyard mosquitoes!
This backyard garden is my last Eden and resources of comfort
Because I am hopeless unemployed architect at the age seventy one,
While Michigan's nipping wind blows along the bordering ravine
You, importunate creatures hibernate deep into withered marshes,
When the spring sun shines brightly over the vigorous landscape
You flirt with loving ones as singing and dancing at full joys,
Before whitening in the eastern sky as the burning sun climbs
Your thirsty needles suck up sweet morning dew lodged in the grass,
Nevertheless you ambush me avariciously to sting my dried vessels.
Esaku Kondo
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-backyard-mosquitoes/
