Bev Tappan

Category: Japan Poems

  • NORWICH YEARS: THE INN AT TAKAYAMA

    THE INN AT TAKAYAMA

    Clad in our blue and white guesthouse kimonos

    We sit at a low table

    Where oval cups repose while tea leaves

    Steep.  Calm as anemones.

    We have drifted in steaming baths, shed travel

    Stress with western clothes.

    Lemon lilies smile by the television.

    From cherry tree to river

    Finch notes drop with white petals.

    Kneeling on the tatami mat

    The innkeeper’s wife and her maid pull sheets

    Smooth as just fallen snow

    Tight across fiery red futons.

    Later we will stroll along the shore

    And cross the bridge to the three-story pagoda.

  • JAPAN POEMS: 22 HAIKUS

    TIME TRAVEL #1

    Westward to Japan

    We fly into tomorrow

    Before today ends.

    JAPANESE TODDLER

    Petite and sad-eyed,

    When gifted with a toy car

    She glows with wonder.

    JAPANESE FATHER

    The headphones he fits

    To his daughter’s tiny head

    Are like a blessing.

    FALL REUNION

    Three old Japanese

    Comrades smile for our camera

    At the Buddhist shrine.

    GINGKO BILOBA

    Maidenhair fossil

    Tree, you are said to be the

    Cure for all life’s ills.

    jAPAN CITIES

    Swarming urban hives,

    Every bus a cattle car,

    Each crossing, Times Square.

    FORECAST

    Japan, exemplum

    Of the word “congestion”:

    Our planet’s future.

    THE PHILOSOPHERS’ WALK

    Lined with cherry trees

    By a flowing waterway,

    A respite from crowdS.

    A FAR CALLING

    From the Zushi train

    We see a glimpse of Fuji,

    Clear but far away.

    THE TRAIN TO TAKAYAMA

    Along a river

    Cut into volcanic rock

    The night falls early.

    TAKAYAMA TO NAGOYA

    Bullet trains cut straight

    Through and between mountainsides

    Gowned in fall colors.

    MEMENTO MORI

    At Hase temple

    Kites circle over our heads.

    Death is never far.

    AT THE ZOO

    With unhopeful eyes

    The elephant looks at me

    And I feel ashamed.

    APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEIVING

    Fragrant lychee fruit,

    Your delicious white sweetness

    Hides in your rough rind.

    THE HAKONE YAJIKITA

    Painted charlatan,

    You gull foreign visitors.

    You are no ryokan.

    TAKAYAMA MARKET

    Your vegetables

    Astonish foreign viewers:

    So big, so perfect!

    RESTING PLACE

    Towering cedars

    Shelter a benign spirit:

    Koyasan’s founder.

    LITTLE TREES

    Gracious persimmons,

    Your golden globes light our way

    And your fruit hangs low.

    AUTUMN SPLENDOR

    Delicate fingered

    Fiery red gold maples:

    Fall epiphony.

    ANOMALY

    Sea of sand and stone

    At the Silver Pavilion

    A respite from crowds.

    PETITION

    Gnarly limbed old pine,

    Symbol of longevity,

    Teach us how to age.

    TIME TRAVEL #2

    As I’ve longed to do,

    We fly back in time, but we

    Don’t fly far enough.

  • JAPAN POEMS: ODYSSEY

    ODYSSEY

    I have returned to Japan after thirty years

    Since our youngest daughter made her way

    To complete in Osaka her BU college degree.

    Her father was still jogging every day.

    Life and the rice fields were still green.

    On this fall visit to Japan I plead

    For some relief from grief.  I ask

    The gracious Buddha for heart’s ease.

    And as the strenuous swift days pass

    Through alien and exotic scenes,

    I sense a slowly growing distance

    Between my sweet lost loves and me,

    A moat of separation from the past.

    Though no less dear their features be,

    I stand outside the looking glass

    Between what is and what can never be,

    Between acceptance and a world of pain,

    And lightening my dark misery

    I feel a welcome sense of peace.

    The rice stalks now are drying in the fields.

  • JAPAN POEMS: SIGNALING DIETES

    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.