Huntington Road, Cambridge

Sometimes,
In the intimidating proximity of shadows
You want to retreat
Into the very sensations of the body
From where you wish to escape,

But the vanishing road escarpment,
The artifice of colonial history,
Leaves you somewhat disembodied
And agitated
By the spirit of things to come.

August 1997, Cambridge

The Chuo Line

This is the morning rush hour
On the Chuo rapid to Tokyo,
Men are holding their jackets or
Have folded them over their satchels
In their lap and gone to sleep;
Women are not far behind.

As the hot air from the radiator
Warm their thighs and bottoms
Some women lose their modesty and
Go to sleep with bedroom abandon;
Men reading folded newspapers
Take an occasional peep.

Squat houses whiz by outside,
Bicycle stands appear and disappear;
An entire metropolitan geography opens
In the somewhat muggy morning
Made muggier by packed commuters
And sudden lurches and jerks.

High school girls in sailor uniforms
In triple folded skirts at the waist
Show their pudgy cream thighs
As they stand eating breakfast,
While boys push down their trousers
Holding them by their buttocks.

There is pin drop silence except
For the periodic cackle of the PA system,
Or the hydraulic hiss of
Opening and closing doors.
Stations arrive and go by
As if in a fantasy or a dream.

The train whistles by with
So much of self involvement,
An occasional foreigner like me
Tries to behave as any other local
But what a waste of effort:
They eye me furtively when I doze.

February 2006, Hachioji

Alone

The Gangotri glacier throbs beneath,
My feet, deep and voluminous,
Twisting old mysteries into life.

Huge chunks of ice growl
From below its huge caverns
Feeding a wish-fulfilling Gomukh.

A throbbing silence penetrates
Time without beginning and
Echoes incomprehensible eternity.

Reflected in Tapovan’s emerald blue waters
The caves of Indian hermits are now quiet
As thoughts of some rarified beings

The terra firma, more like a lunar world,
Shapes strange images of the unfamiliar,
Overwhelming the senses.

Crowned with sharp white snow
Shivling’s bewitching divinity lingers
In a translucent darkness

If you were to wait here any longer
You might lose the desire
For human company altogether.

Takiyama Mountains

The night breathes quietly
The Takiyama Mountains
Elbow a hush
Into the valley below
Crickets chirp
A rising colonnade of history
The impenetrable castle
A powerful daimyo
Pushing for control
The Honmaru embankment
Still holding together

Thoughts get startled
By the zoom of a scooter,
The thud of an object,
In the apartment building
Across the road
The thump of a door,
Somewhere
In the neighborhood,
An accelerating car
Jumping a traffic light
Near the Hiyodoriama Tunnel

The Orion constellation
Light up the sumi-colored night
And there is a distinct
Smell of perfume that
I can recognize
As the door of a car closes
With a thump and then the
Cloperty clop clop
Cloperty clop clop
Of a woman in high heels
Put me to sleep

A Coffee Shop

An old style French coffee shop
Wafting warm coffee smell
In a light drizzle,
A soft piano music
Quiet between an occasional
Clutter of cups,
Chopping of salad,
A brief conversation
A pretty waitress
In white and crimson dress
A drizzle of piano music
And nothing else to do,
No hurry,
Just a quiet reflection
Unwinding itself

Fog

Stray dogs yelp
In the growing fog
At night.

Perhaps
They got
Frightened

In the garbage dump
By some foraging pig
Doing a midnight jig.

Kalkaji

Early morning fog
Of January
Turning into
Large droplets
Against
The windowpanes.

The fog swirls
Around trees,
On the roads,
Across the bridge,
Hazing headlights,
Slowing traffic

The sound of
The brass bell
Of the
Prachin Bhairon Mandir
Rides
The fog

The washed
And sanctified
Stone parikrama
Is cold against
The naked feet of
Men and women

Homeless men
Huddled against
The huge stonewall
Of the temple
Breathing slowly
In their dirty blankets

Here
They wait
For the
Early morning
Devotes who will
Offer them some food.

The Nakasendo Highway

It climbs up into the sky
Curving at the point
Of the distant horizon
Where ideas meet emotion
Then vanishes like a wild animal
Between wooden houses in the
Overnight heavy snow
In the morning it can only be
Recognized by occasional pugmarks
Of a pack of raccoon dogs,
Small clog footprints or
A lonely raven’s
Caw caw for food.

When the cedar forests
Are swollen with snow
And their swooning pollen
Is caught
In the tight grip of winter,
When the buds of the
Peach, plum and cherry
Hide in their protective barks
A dwarfish figure approaches
The barn, somewhat bent,
To clear the snow
Over the ishidatami (*1)
For no particular reason

The snow
On the hime no kaido (*2),
Remembers
Apart from other
Nubile girls
Princess Kazunomiya
Who also took this road
On her way to Edo
To marry a shogun,
Even when engaged
To another man,
Just to give more power
To the empire.

As her large retinue
Wound slowly
Through small towns
Making friends with people
And rested
At Lake Biwa,
She looked back
Towards Kyoto
With wistful regret
And had an inkling
Of things to come;
A married woman
Becoming a nun.

Hirosuge’s floating world
Of 69 stations have
Now given way
To modernized expressways,
Streaking shinkansens,
And the distractions
Of the civilized world;
The beautiful post towns,
The secluded sukego villages,
Houses along the highway,
The old world of Nihonbashi ,
The bookshops of Kanda,
Lie in ruin or are nearly gone.

But the seasons remain and
The mountains of Sekigahara,
The Ise shrine of Amaterasu,
The snow of the Japanese Alps,
Come to life again in seasons
Of falling snow,
Of floating cherry blossoms,
Of cicadas chirping from trees,
And if your strain your ears
You can still hear the princess,
Daimyo and his horses,
The entire nation breathing
As it traverses the Nakasendo

(*1) Stone tatami
(*2) The road of the princesses