Kenji Miyazawa

Kenji Miyazawa was a 20th century Japanese poet who loved Nature and Science. In a New Scientist article Roger Pulvers who has translated Miyazawa's poems describes him as a tireless and faithful chronicler of nature.

A beautiful line from one of his poems quoted in the article:

Messengers, so to speak, of a catalogue of light
From every possible era that is or ever was.

This "catalogue of light" is a catalogue of time. Miyazawa recognises that the light from the celestial objects we see represents images from different times in the past. At a time when Einstein's theories were not well understood in Japan, the poet from Iwate uses one of its tenets to illustrate the nature of the universe.

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The World of Kenji Miyazawa.