#2494 -- in admiration of the trees

 

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in admiration of the trees

over the mountain from Kinbune to Kurama

 

and deeper in amongst                 

breathing what they breathe

catching breath up

 

into the understory dark

still at

steps climbing

up out to bright

 

catch a passage of cloud for far

that’s the view

 

at some points only a forest of roots

 

trees tall as the stream is long

 

a shower and mud traipse

comes then the sun

 

archaic of course

our fathers’ sun

and their mothers’ moon

sky hiding

 

not so many stars

 

daylight would spoil them  

 

rhythm’s of the forest’s breath

of paws, of one’s way on

 

there are voices a mountain can spare

 

to speak of the mountain

one abandons the word

 

day here is just as long as light lasts

 

some mountains won’t have a top

keep thinking you’ve made it but

 

I whisper up the god just here

it’s only the touch of a bell

 

one side of the mountain’s wild

other’s all devotion, built

 

toil, suffering, hope

 

touch of the breeze told

 

find yourself here

 

I know which temple mine is

#2493 -- poem on the little train (Eizan Railway)

 

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poem on the little train

Eizan Railway

 

train to beautiful places

bound for such parts as you’d read in a book

 

with a chugachug on and no whistle to blow

 

you open the page of doors

and there’s the driver at his little window

taking your ticket – window up, window down

 

white glove and a microphone

he must be as old as the train

 

watches for the signal, slows, gestures to himself

 

all the way the train’s fighting the rails

 

with creak and a twist and an on we go

 

out of the town and into the forest

 

someone has scraped half the mountain away

… still… there’s half a mountain left

 

trees reach

they’re beside themselves to be here

 

here’s a shout and a yoshi

           and on

deeper we ride into the season

 

the river is roaring beside us

follows along every step of the way

 

the river runs on when we’re gone

 

#2492 -- in a bamboo grove

 

2492

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in a bamboo grove

Fushimi Inari

 

day declining

damp cedar

 

a gate creeps up on a gate

there are ten thousand

 

this is light the colour of a last sun

still keeps a sky up

 

there are at least ten thousand feet

 

it’s only on foot one presses beyond  

it’s only in mud past the dust

 

in a bamboo grove

 

gate upon gate

door beyond door

into the still, the swaying

by its own breeze

eyes up

 

down here

the not quite silence of a stream

 

it’s always into another world

vanish, remember, return

 

dim already under

 

so many stone foxes

prepare for their hunt

 

shoot an arrow

into a rice cake

 

rice shoots up where the bird will land

 

through each gate, more sacred

slip back in time

 

we shed the day

as we go on

 

there must be merit

in that 

#2491 -- art of the almost

 

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art of the almost

Butoh

 

here is the nakedness of a storm

loin stretch shoulder to facing away

 

shivering skinshake all over severe

 

and so as if to say

backs to it

itch and slap

till you’re mosquito

 

then take the sun

crawl forward

 

all of us casting a red eyed drool

 

to act

and so forgive

 

a frog hop exorcism reversing then

 

tear and bite

 

cheer on the demons, bow, out

 

cast red, stretch, curl

 

gone where we go and when

 

gathering light by the while

and letting it

as if a word in the air

 

I implore

it touches

 

little shiver in the works

 

shape of a washed up sea

 

so solemn succumb

 

it’s if you’re the face

can’t be seen

 

if it’s your

 

something is always being meant

 

a defence

and here we think past it

 

it was not I, who

 

wishing touch but none

 

draw a line no one sees

 

the only rhythm here’s a heart

you can’t hear it though

 

if there’s a face

it’s mine

 

I am writing this in the dark

 

#2490 -- life in the quilt

 

2490

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life in the quilt

ekphrastic for Hayashi Sayoko’s ‘Machiya Quilt’

 

life in the quilt is a forest

there is a house of all seasons shone

 

rooftops and rainbright

in leftover sleep

 

the flower and the leaf put out

 

a house is cut from this memory

 

life is as dreaming from the day gone

 

is it for us to know?

 

there is a whimsy of hills

 

are we here?

 

the house is a piano

clouds sewn over

 

what bird will sing past this stillness?

 

crowd in a wild dance these woods are

 

life is a leaf in the forest

it’s turning

 

later some stars

stay in bed

 

and some fall

 

roof is a quilt of cloud, of star

 

ways of a dream are as a garden

all turns, never the same

 

as if it were cut from lost cloth

… here are the other lives

 

there’s a moon

there are many

we’ve known them all

to dream this far

 

dream this house past, dream another

 

some days in the rain road’s nearly gone

 

in some sleeps least ships slip by

 

with how have we come

and where may we go?

 

that’s how people may dream on

 

there’s life in the quilt and under

 

nothing here but the hands to touch

she is making the cloth from leftover sleep

 

building the house from the dream

 

through gate after gate

each step more sacred

 

can you see?

 

it’s through merely a lattice so

 

someone is looking out from a window

 

no clock will tick through

no news will touch

 

winter’s away

 

this quilt will keep me warm 

#2489 -- the figure fades

 

2489

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26.x.26

the figure fades

ekphrastic for Kojima Yuji’s ‘the mundane sphere’

 

here in a well of the sky, the eyes

 

and every animal sacred

 

lost script, a way wept

 

something erupts

 

there’s golden

 

a wall inside

 

flat beard king

the chequerboard falling

 

there’s a face where you won’t look

 

a figure fades into the wall

 

there is no place for us above

we must not fall below 

#2488 -- Ten Heian Jingu Haiku

 

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Ten Heian Jingu Haiku

one more arrangement of nature

 

the just dug pond

two ducks take off

it’s not what they had imagined

 

shadows of branches

fill my blank canvas

and now a cloud re-primes

 

stones step across

a dragon’s back

ghosts of trees lament

 

gingerly, arms out for balance

at the photo op stone

fall in

 

traffic roar

just over the fence

little fish and slightly bigger

 

it’s so many ways

your every tree goes

without ever giving a thought

 

a breeze of turned leaves

a tortoise headsup

beyond the frond, frog lands

 

the shallow world and the swimming

garden as good as a picture

all these eyes to follow you round

 

it’s just me here

trying to keep invisible

forbidding myself from the poem

 

ripple of wings, grooming antics

the stillness below and the stillness above

ducks duck under now