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