STAIRWAY -for Hiroto Emi, painter - poem by Tian Yuan, China

21 Febbraio 2022

STAIRWAY,

---for Hiroto Emi, painter

Sunlight chases away the darkness of a stairway

I sense the floodtide of time

Pouring down the staircase

Engulfing a silent space

A hand holds a brush

As if wielding a beam of light

Out of darkness restoring a stairway

Turning cubical facts to planar abstractions

I am moved by reflection of sunlight

On the stairway. How like a cloud

Of sunlit motes is our life?

Shifting along with a beam, a vanishing figment

Then rising with the sun's rays to show itself again

A stairway is an orderly system, a set of laws

Concealing deep secrets in its philosophy

A stairway is a kind of silence

Bearing the weight of darkness and solitude

A stairway is replete with structure and texture

Such as gradient, width, material of wood or cement

But it carries out a single duty

Upward: to shorten your distance from the sun

Downward: you walk onto broad ground, toward the horizon

A stairway is a backup device

On nights of power outage, we have to proceed carefully

Climbing as best we may, feeling our way with footsteps

A stairway can also be a chair—there are times

It offers a seat to rest on, or nurse silent anger

We often ignore the existence of stairs

In fact, there is a stair in each person’s heart

It often puts us to the test:

Will we be able to go up; will we be able to come down?

　Tian　Yuan

Mr.Tian Yuan profile

Born in 1965 in Henan Province in China. Earned his doctorate in Japanese Literature from Ritsumeikan University. Currently teaches at Josai International University. His main publications in include the Chinese volumes Selected Poems of Tian Yuan and A Snake in Dreams．

Introduction of the painter

Hiroto Emi (1981-), painter/artist

Currently based in Tokyo, Japan

“The stairs” is owned by Hoki museum