origami duck…
inside its folds the names
of dead soldiers
Comment: a powerful poem juxtaposing the pleasant, beautiful picture of a folded origami 折り紙 to the commemoration of the soldiers who died on the battlefield. We do not know for sure which conflict this poem refers to; maybe the word ‘duck’ (kamo 鴨) implicitly points to the so-called operation ‘Duck Hook’ carried out during the Vietnam War (1955-1975), but there are many other possible interpretations. The hand gestures unfolding the origami therefore represent the poet’s will not to forget the past, bringing to light the mistakes that the human race keeps repeating and tries to hide (cf. the word ‘inside’). Note the alliteration of the ‘s’ sound, that really looks like a whisper.
