moon eclipse–
a fairy tale told
in the darkness
Comment: the fairy tale told by the protagonist to his son (or nephew) finds a suitable, suggestive contextualization in the opening line. The lunar eclipse (gesshoku 月食) is in fact an event lived with enthusiasm and surprise by every child, suggesting the right mood and sketching a dark, mysterious setting in which the characters could freely move. The dash (–) placed at the end of line 1 marks the passage from a realist vision of things to a world of fantasy; it also offers to readers the opportunity and time to reflect on their own life, particularly on how the vision of things changes during the transition from childhood to adulthood. The term ‘darkness’ (kurayami 暗闇) is quite rough and ambivalent and may suggest further interpretative outcomes.
