Carrying only flowers, I head to the usual greenhouse on the rooftop.

The tsunami swept away so many lives.
Memories of landscapes were dragged to the ocean floor.
Photographs, notebooks, musical instruments, meticulously tended bonsai, letters, mobile phones,
our usual meeting spot, the bus stop, Grandma's abacus.

After the tremors on the 11th, the tsunami's force became clearer each day,

something tore apart, the bottom fell out, and my body was in a vacuum.

To the many lives and landscapes swallowed whole. To the scattered fragments of memory.
I wanted to arrange flowers to honor the souls that have departed.
Ten days have passed, and this is all I could do.

Arranging flowers is a strange thing.
Until I arrange them, I don't know how they will turn out.
Carrying only flowers, I head to the usual greenhouse on the rooftop.

The vessel, the water, the flowers, and the body meet there,
and what happens in between.
The unseen is always in contact with the visible world.
Between the vessel, the water, the flowers, and the body,
something new is born.
If something is lacking, it draws in something else.
…Ah, a magnetic field is forming here.

I arranged the flowers.
I preserved them.
I interred them.

So that something new might be born.
I intend to continue this for a while.

Onshitsu
Yuichi Tsukada