朝日新聞コラム「天声人語」(2002.10.7)
| 夕暮れの街を歩いていて、不意にキンモクセイの香りに襲われる。豊潤な香りにはっとする。心を浮き立たせる豊潤さでなく、秋の夕暮れのひっそりと寂しい空気を引き立てる豊潤さだ。 夕暮れについて作家の永井荷風がこんなふうに書いたことがある。「日の暮はさむしい。どんな人にも日の暮はさむしいだろう。なぜだ。そしてどういう寂しさだと、われながら問うても答えられぬ幽かな寂しさである」。そして「日の暮は子供の心のもさむしいらしい」と続く。 「夕ぐれは」と題した小学生のこんな詩がある。 夕ぐれは/ なぜか/ なぜか ひとりぼっちのように とりのこされたように とてもさびしい/ それは 不安のような なんともたとえられない さみしさ/ 夕ぐれは/ さみしい |
神奈川県の堀明子さんが小学3,4年のころに書いた詩だ。明子さんは88年、高校１年のとき事故で亡くなった。両親は翌年、亡き娘の詩集『四季の色』を自費出版し、それを元にこの９月幼いころの詩を集めた『つぼみたくさん』（草思社）ができた。 収められている詩の多くは花をうたう。そして木や鳥や虫や空のことも。たとえば いい風だ/ 気もちがいい いいにおい/ きんもくせいのかおり いい声だ/ 小鳥の歌声 いい空気/ むねいっぱいにすいこむ 詩集にはときに「夕ぐれは」のような自省的な詩が混ざる。文豪の「寂しさ」も少女の「さみしさ」も変わりはない。少女がもう少したくさんの夕暮れとキンモキセイの香りを経験できたらよかったのにと思った。 |
| VOX POPULL, VOX DEI（Herald Asahi） Blossoms at Dusk Set The Mood for Poetry |
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| While strolling the streets at dusk, I suddenly smelled the scent of kinmokusei
(fragrant olive)blossoms in bloom. The richand mellow scent always takes
me by surprise. But it is not of a kind that lifts my spirit. It merely
suits the loneliness that fills the air at dusk in autumn. "It feels lonely at dusk" novelist Kafu Nagai (1879〜1959) once wrote of yugure, or dusk one of the recurrent themes in Japanese poetry. "I suppose everyone feels lonely at dusk. Why is it so? I ask myself what kind of loneliness I feel, but I cannot specify it because the loneliness I feel is too delicate to identify." "It apparently feels lonely even to the minds of children." he added. An elementary school girl wrote a poem on dusk: "Somehow, I feel very lonely/ As if I were left alone/ It may be a sense of insecurity/ I just do not know how to express it/ It feels lonely at dusk." |
This poem is titled "Yugure-wa" (At Dusk) Akiko Hori composed
it when she was a third or fourth grader at an elementary school in Kanagawa
Prefecture. She was killed in an accident in 1988. She was then a first
grader in senior high school. The next year, her parents published a collection
of poems by their daughter, titled "Shikino Iro" (Colors of the
four Seasons),at their own expense. They went on to compile poems dating
even further back, and a new volume was publicshed by Soshi-sha this September
under the title "Tsubomi Takusan" (Abundant Flowers in Bud) Many of the poems in the new volume are about flowers. Mention is also made of trees, birds, insects and the sky, as in this poem: "It is a nice wind/ I feel good, and I smell a nice scent/ It is the scent of kinmokusei/ I hear birds chirping in lovely voices/ And the air is sweet/ I breathe it deep into my lungs." Some are pensive, like "Yugure-wa" It felt as lonely for the young girl as for the great novelist. I wish that she had more opportunities to smell the scent of fragment olive blossoms at dusk. |