Shinto shrines in Kyoto
Celebrate rites of spring:
Tall tourists, compact
Blacksuited businessmen, and geishas
Graceful in pink silk
Stack prayersticks like firewood,
Arrange on altars carp,
Orange pyramids, nests
Of eggs, flowers and autographed
Bottled sake in rows
Firemen in red helmets
Drag hoses close
To a bonfire draped with evergreens.
Smiling priests beckon
Parishioners to wash their hands
And rinse their mouths at springs.
Like ibis lifting white
Wings, black-hatted holymen
Raise waterfall sleeves,
Bow, intone, and chant.
They loft arrows to four
Compass points over temple
Roofs. Inflaming cupids,
They pierce the heart of the pyre.
A torch, temple ignited,
Is paraded to climactic union with fresh-cut cedar swags.
Smoke blossoms and billows
As laughing priests ladle
Water onto greens. Smoke
Tickles the nostrils of the gods
Until fiery tongues, erupting
Arouse a passionate inferno
Consuming the proffered prayersticks.
Ejaculating heavenward the petitions
Of another Golden Week.
An ocean away, on a cloudless
Mountain top, a radio
Telescope listens for replies
From other bubbles of the universe.