What doleful thing
man has devised!
Standing before it
means standing before oneself.
One who questions in front of it
at once finds himself questioned.
Moreover,
why is it you have to step backward
in order to move farther inside?

– Kikuo Takano, “Mirror” in Like Underground Water: The Poetry of Mid-Twentieth Century Japan

Notes – Poem via Schonwieder (via 1910). Photo: Laura Zalenga