My Pilgrimage to Monuments Inscribed with Ito Shizuo's Poems (3)

I stepped out of Nankai Sakai Station west, and walked along the southern edge of the Hotel Agora Regency Osaka Sakai with camellias on my right.  I came to the elevated Route 26, and thought I got lost.  I walked back a little, and found a small sign to show the way to the Old Sakai Lighthouse on the other side of the street.  I passed under the elevated highway and found the Old Sakai Port in front of me with terraced esplanades surrounding it.  At the top of the terraces, I noticed the back of a bronze statue near and a goddess image on the open sea side of the port.  Stepping down the terraces, I recognized the statue was that of Luzon Sukezaemon (1565-?), who was a trader of Sakai and who is known to have presented pottery from Luzon in the Philippines to Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598).  He later was exiled by Hideyoshi and emigrated to Cambodia.  In the distance, on the other side of the goddess image, I found the lighthouse.  I walked through promenades along the port lined with palm trees.  Why palm trees in Japan?  I don't know.

I had to go under another busy noisy elevated highway to get to the lighthouse.  And, alas, today's main, a monument inscribed with Ito Shizuo's poem, was just under the noisy highway.  Wondering who was insensitive, the builder of the monument or the Hanshin Expressway Company Limited, I read his poem silently:

Seeing the Beams of a Lighthouse

The beams of a lighthouse roam.

Flickering and rotating,

The green lights hover

Over my whole night.

Thus, the beams give my night

Various meanings:

Indescribable and inexpressible

Sorrow and wishes.

Ah, over my sorrow and wishes,

Tenderly and gently

All through my night

The beams of the lighthouse hover.