𝕥𝕖𝕥𝕤𝕦 𝕟𝕒𝕜𝕒𝕛𝕚𝕞𝕒

Mid-Journey — Years ago, in graduate school, I studied travel and mobility. But the research was never only theoretical. I was also traveling — watching how movement, borders, and small encounters shape ordinary lives. Those thoughts slowly became small fragments on Twitter. Each one began with the same words: 旅の途上 — Mid-Journey. There were 365 of them. In 2023 they became a small book. Now I am walking that road again, turning those fragments into poems — one each day until December 31. 365 fragments of a road. 旅の途上 — ずいぶん前、大学院でボクは旅と移動について研究していました。 でもそれは理論だけではありませんでした。実際に旅をしながら、移動や境界、そして小さな出会いが人の生活をどう形づくるのかを見ていました。 その思考はやがて、Twitterに書く小さな断片へと変わっていきました。 どの断片も同じ言葉から始まります。 「旅の途上」 全部で365ありました。それらは2023年に一冊の本になりました。 そして今、ボクはその道をもう一度歩き、それらを詩へと書き直しています。 12月31日まで、毎日ひとつ。 365の道の断片。

@ourplayandart Yes... the kind of light that makes a stranger’s house feel almost like an invitation🚶‍♂️🌆🏡🤍

@WaniTutor Evening window light chimney smoke Gently touch you feel like walking in 🌷🤍

#vss365 #Signal Mid-Journey— all day I moved through space: roads, stations, anonymous weather. Maps told me where I was, but not what anything meant. Then, at dusk, one kitchen window lit up a small domestic signal: someone boiling water, someone expected home. And suddenly the dark was no longer anonymous. It had become a place.

@ourplayandart Thank you! Sometimes all it takes is one small signal for the unfamiliar to feel like home. 😌🙏

@WaniTutor Beautiful 💯

旅の途上で一日じゅう「空間」のなかを移動していました。道や、駅や、匿名の天気のなかを。 地図は自分がどこにいるかは教えてくれても、そこにどんな意味があるのかまでは教えてくれません。 夕暮れになって、ひとつの台所の窓に灯りがともりました。 小さな生活の気配です。誰かがお湯を沸かし、誰かの帰りを待っています。 すると突然、闇はもう匿名ではなくなっていました。 それは「場所」になっていたのです。

@EricJohnson1363 Oof — this hits hard. The image of old rain "remembering my address" is brilliant — as if pain knows exactly where to find us. That feeling of being more fluent in goodbye than hello…..all too relatable. And yet this poem still chooses sunlight. That’s what makes it so moving.

Spare Some Sunshine Can you spare some sunshine for a poor soul who’s paid his rent in storm clouds far too long? My lease is up on every kind of gray— thunder in the ribcage, lightning in the tongue. I’ve kissed enough hurricanes to know the taste of love that leaves you soaked and half-drowned. Still I show up grinning like a fool, holding out my cracked umbrella anyhow. Your laugh cuts clean through the murk, sudden sun on water after rain. I flinch — old habit — then lean in to burn, afraid this warmth might call my bluff again. Can you spare some sunshine for a poor soul fluent in goodbye, still clumsy in hello? I speak in minor keys and minor scars, yet here I stand, humming in your major glow. Teach me how to stand beneath it steady, without scanning skies for the next black cloud. I’m half convinced I’ll melt or turn to steam, but damn if your light doesn’t make me want to try. So yeah — spare a little. Just enough to see what kind of man I might become in it before the old rain remembers my address and drags me back where I almost fit. #EricJPoetry #RhymedVerse #LovePoetry #PoetryCommunity

旅の途上のあらゆるものが旅人の知らない言葉を話しているカフェで、彼女がコーヒーから顔を上げました。 あれは何かの合図だったのでしょうか。それとも、ただの優しさだったのでしょうか。 窓の外では、雨が辛抱強いモノローグを窓に打ちつけながら練習していました。 彼女が再び視線を落とすまでのあいだに、旅人は１００通りの未来を思い描いていました。 切符から始まる旅もありますが、美しく読み違えることから始まる旅もあるのです。

#vss365 #Signal Mid-Journey— in a café where everything spoke a language I did not know, she looked up from her coffee. Was that a signal, or only kindness? Outside, rain rehearsed its patient monologue against the window. I invented a hundred futures before she looked down again. Some journeys begin with a ticket. Others begin because we misunderstand beautifully.

hittegolf vannacht zelfs mijn dromen beginnen te transpireren #haiku

Mid-Journey— the train carried us through unfamiliar suburbs, each of us framed in separate windows. A woman held a paper cup as though warmth alone might explain her trembling. A man slept upright, his suitcase guarding his knees. A child asked a question too soft to survive the rails. And all of us practiced the etiquette of not seeing. Your sorrow belonged to your reflection. My exhaustion belonged to mine. Between stations, we offered one another the quiet mercy of mutual omission. In dialogue with Erving Goffman. #CivilInattention

#Goffman #儀礼的無関心 旅の途上の列車は私たちを見知らぬ郊外へと運んでいきます。それぞれ別々の窓枠に収まりながら。 女性は紙コップを握り、その温もりだけで震えを説明できるかのようでした。 男性はスーツケースを膝の守りにして座ったまま眠っています。 子どもは線路の音にかき消されるほど小さな声で何かを尋ねました。 それでも私たちは皆、見ないという礼儀を実践しています。 あなたの悲しみはあなたの窓のもの。 旅人の疲れは旅人の窓のもの。 駅と駅のあいだで、私たちは互いに差し出しています。 触れないという静かな慈悲を。

@junkosuzuki16 おはようございます。ボクもそんな気がしています。境目をなくすことでも、頑なに守ることでもなく、そのあいだでどう揺れながら生きるかなのかもしれませんね。だからこそ、震えながらも「けっして閉じない」という言葉が心に残りました。

@WaniTutor おはようございます。 昨日から、「境目」のことを考えていました。私たちに課されているのは、その境目をどう生きるかなのでしょうか。

光の振動が 私の輪郭を 解いていく 世界と私の境が 消えていく 私が わたしに なっていく ビリビリ ピリピリ ヒリヒリ ブルブル プルプル フルフル 震えながら けっして 閉じない the vibration of light dissolves the outline of myself the boundary between the world and me fades away I become myself buzzing biribiri prickling piripiri stinging hirihiri trembling buruburu quivering purupuru fluttering furufuru while trembling never completely closed ☆ 情と知は、一体であ。存在そのものである。情は、知の論理が見落としている生の気配・関係性を感知し、知の論理は、情が見落としている構造・生合成を感知する。互いに生かし合う関係である。

@EricJohnson1363 Beautifully put. Some oases seem to exist only for travelers in motion—not settlers. Thank you, Eric!!!

@WaniTutor The only way to keep the oasis alive is never to claim it.

#MidJourney365 Mid-Journey— I fled the noise of stations, the human weather of delay and collision, following a rumor of green toward some forgotten edge of the map. Vines opened like a promise. Leaves held their breath. Even the light seemed uninjured there. I thought: here. At last, a place that asked nothing of movement, nothing of becoming. So I stopped. And the oasis vanished. Not all at once, but the way a reflection disappears when the water is touched. The peace had belonged not to the place, but to my arrival. Rest was never waiting in the jungle. It lived in the crossing. To feel its cool hand again, I had to keep walking.

#MidJourney365 Mid-Journey— at every farewell, someone offers the usual provisions: safe travels, good fortune, a small blessing for the road. As though luck had the final say. I left in search of freedom, thinking escape itself was enough. Yet every road, however open, leans toward a destination. Call it destiny, if you like. To flee what seemed already written, only to find a place already waiting. But travel was never about waiting for chance to choose. No stars need consulting. No omens need interpreting. The road asks for neither certainty nor permission. Only motion. Move.

#旅の途上365 旅の途上の別れのたびに、誰かがお決まりの旅支度を手渡してくれます。どうかご無事で。どうか幸運がありますように。そんな小さな祝福を、旅路のために。 まるで、幸運が最後の決定権を握っているかのようです。 旅人は自由を求めて旅立ちました。逃れることそのものが、もう十分なのだと思っていました。 けれど、どれほど開かれた道であっても、やがては目的地へと傾いていきます。それを運命と呼びたければ、そう呼べばよいのです。 すでに書かれているように思えたものから逃げたはずなのに、気づけば、すでにそこで待っている場所を見つけるのです。 けれど旅とは、偶然が行き先を選んでくれるのを待つことではありません。 星に尋ねる必要はありません。前兆を読み解く必要もありません。 道が求めているのは確信でも許しでもありません。 ただ、動くことだけです。 進めばよいのです。

@EricJohnson1363 Thank you so much, Eric. I love that you paused there—that was exactly the hope. Sometimes the journey teaches us that rest is not a place we arrive at, but a rhythm we lose the moment we try to hold it still. 😌🙏

The pacing in this piece is beautiful, Tetsu. The white space lets every line breathe and builds that quiet tension perfectly. That single line “So I stopped.” made me stop and hold my breath. The caesura after it feels heavy, like the exact moment everything shifts. Really masterful, Tetsu, how you made the silence itself do the heavy work in the poem. Well done! 👏👏👏

@EricJohnson1363 Some loves stay pickled, never aging into wine — what a line. Beautifully written. The whole poem feels like rain, jazz, and unfinished goodbyes. 😌👍

#FromOneLine "I like my onions pickled" Silver Swallow I like my onions pickled, martinis dry as dust, the lounge holds every secret in its faded velvet trust. A woman in black stockings lets the candle paint her face, silver swallow on her collar from a man who left no trace. The red leather booths curve like half-remembered arms, holding echoes of laughter from nineteen-thirty charms. No one’s changed the wallpaper or the scarred oak bar, a hundred years of smoke and gin still linger where we are. Sax and bass weave sorrow through the rainy midnight air, trumpet whispers questions no one’s brave enough to dare. Piano strokes the darkness soft as fingertips on skin, drums brush secrets lightly — where do we begin again? I watch her from the doorway, heart in perfect time, each note a quiet scalpel cutting through the brine. She lifts her glass, the silver bird catches candle gleam, frozen in its dive, still chasing some unfinished dream. The rain keeps time outside against the old leaded glass, inside we sit suspended, pickling what we cannot pass. I almost cross the floorboards worn by better men than me, but courage turns to vinegar when love refuses to be free. Some loves stay pickled, never aging into wine, they sting the tongue forever in their perfect, bitter line. The band plays one last chorus, low and blue, I pay my tab and leave her there — swallow, candle, rue. Outside the neon flickers on a street that’s lost its fight, I taste the rain and onions, sharp against the night. Tomorrow she’ll return, same stool, same quiet grace, and I will keep my distance in this old familiar place. The lounge remembers everything we try so hard to forget — a silver swallow pinned to what we haven’t finished yet. #EricJPoetry #RhymedVerse #PoetryCommunity

@VT6153 That’s the beautiful irony of travel—our most awkward moments sometimes open the kindest doors. 🙏✨

@WaniTutor Nice! I know this scenario well as it can be both awkward and embarrassing. In the end - when it happened to me, I made a few new friends that came to my “rescue” on my journey. 🙏😎

#Goffman #役割距離 旅の途上で観光地図をコートのポケットから半分のぞかせながら、それを身につけていないふりをしていました。 地元の人が通り過ぎると、すぐにたたみ、発車案内板を見つめます。立ち居振る舞いだけでこの土地に属せるかのように。 交差点では、迷いが見える程度に少しだけ立ち止まり、誰かの視線を感じると足を速めます。 道に迷っていないふりをすれば、本当に迷っていないことになるかのように。 旅人なら誰でも知っているこの静かな振付け。 道を尋ねたいのに、自立しているふりを演じるのです。

Mid-Journey— I carried the tourist map half-visible from my coat pocket, a badge I pretended not to wear. When locals passed, I folded it quickly, studying the departure board as though belonging might be learned by posture alone. At intersections, I slowed just enough to hesitate, then hurried when someone glanced my way. As if pretending not to be lost made me less lost. Every traveler knows this quiet choreography: to need directions while performing self-sufficiency. In dialogue with Erving Goffman. #RoleDistance