足は手は支那に残してふたたび日本にlegs and hands left behind in China — back to Japan again

戦傷兵士を詠んだ句。足を、手を、大陸の戦場に残して、ふたたび日本の土を踏んだ。失ったものをただ名指すだけの言葉が、戦争というもののかたちを、誇張も感傷もなくまっすぐに伝えてくる。A poem on a wounded soldier. He has left his legs, his hands, on the battlefields of the continent, and set foot again on the soil of Japan. Words that merely name what was lost convey, without exaggeration or sentiment, the very shape of the thing called war.