Ishihara Yoshiro: "Wheat"

Let a stalk of wheat

be your witness

to every difficult day.

Since it was a flame

before it was a plant,

since it was courage

before it was grain,

since it was determination

before it was growth,

and, above all, since it was prayer

before it was fruition,

it has nothing to point to

but the sky.

                                  
Remember the incredibly gentle wheat stalk

which holds its countless arrows fixed

to shoot from the bowstring—

you, standing in the same position

where the wind holds it.

"Wheat" by Ishihara Yoshiro, from Like Underground Water: The Poetry of Mid-Twentieth Century Japan. Translated from the original Japanses by Naoshi Koriyama and Edward Lueders. © Copper Canyon Press, 1995.  

Art credit: Untitled photograph of a stalk of wheat, by Todd Korol/Reuters (originally color).