筑北小学校の運動会。白い玉が青空に舞い、子どもたちの歓声がはじける。背にそびえる山々は、今がいちばん深い緑。校庭を取り囲むまぶしい新緑のもとで、夢中になって走り、跳ねる姿は、いつの時代もきっと変わらない。村の子の一日が、ここにある。
English
It is undokai — sports day — at Chikuhoku Elementary, and the white beanbags are flying. They arc into a flat blue sky, trailing the shouts of children who have forgotten everything but the basket above their heads. The mountains that ring the village have reached their deepest green of the year, a wall of new leaves so bright it seems lit from within. Beneath it the children scramble and leap, faces tilted up, mouths half-open, each throw a small, weightless bid to land one more ball before the whistle. It is a scene that cannot have changed much, in any era: the dust, the bare knees, the brief hush as a beanbag hangs at the top of its arc. A village day, in the cup of the hills it has always belonged to.