The original is all present tense verbs. I've had this lying around in draft form for weeks, trying to figure out why the English always felt so clunky. Takashi's Japanese original may not be imaginative, but clunky it isn't. Finally I realized that if I shifted everything but the last verse to past tense, it came out sounding a little better.
:::
I wrapped a single strand of my hair
around your finger:
I wanted you to wait for me.
Your dark eyes turned
beautifully blue.
The scene was like a movie set:
dust clouds crossing the winter station.
Tears slid down your lashes
as you stared down at our shadows.
I was going to the big city, yes,
but in my stead, the wind would tell you:
"Wait for me, hyacinth,
and do not wither."
Half a year slipped past.
In a letter, I wrote:
"Why don't you come join me
here in the city?"
Your answer came:
"Don't be conceited."
— just those three words, and nothing else.
And that's exactly where things ended.
The hyacinth bloomed in silence
and its petals fell in silence too.
It happened so quietly
that it reminded me of you.
The color has leaked away from my memories
so that they're like black and white photos now,
but one thing that's as vivid as it always was
is the blue
your dark eyes once turned into.
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