#2492 -- in a bamboo grove

 

2492

7.300

29.x.26

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