Written By: Rajeev
A small night storm blows
Saying 'falling is the essence of a flower'
Preceding those who hesitate
~ Yukio Mishima
This is the Death Poem of Japanese poet and author Yukio Mishima(Real name Kimitake Hiraoka). Death poem is a genre of poetry emerging from East Asian cultures, mainly Japan. It is a poem one writes moments before his/her death.
Now, imagine yourself in your last moments;(although it is impossible, but try) the whole script of your life, floating in front of your eyes. The script is written on sheets of paper and the sheets are dipped in ink, bright red ink.
A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend about a play and how theatre artists rehearse for hours before actually performing the play and he said that what if our life is a play, and we have rehearsed this grand play so many times that we've forgotten our actual reality.
While reading the Death Poem of Mishima a thought came to me that maybe, the moment when Mishima wrote this poem was the moment of Curtain Call of his grand play of life. And what can an actor do during his last moments on the stage? He can speak, and Mishima did the same.
Mishima a nationalist writer, poet, and actor after witnessing all the ups and downs of his country and the world used a flower for the metaphor in his last poem; how heartbreaking and at the same time beautiful it is. Of all the things we have created, we failed to create one thing that can be as poetic as a falling flower.
He took the ink dipped sheets and squeezed the script of his life, he squeezed it so tight that it became white again, and the ink dripping from the script took the shape of a poem, his last poem, the Death Poem of Yukio Mishima.
Mishima committed suicide at the age of 45 by traditional Japanese method of suicide called Seppuku.