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.

]]> https://bevtappan.net/2017/01/05/norwich-years-the-inn-at-takayama/feed/ 0 1724 https://bevtappan.net/2014/11/27/japan-poems-22-haikus/ https://bevtappan.net/2014/11/27/japan-poems-22-haikus/#respond Thu, 27 Nov 2014 13:45:11 +0000 http://bevpoems.wordpress.com/?p=751 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.

]]> https://bevtappan.net/2014/11/27/japan-poems-22-haikus/feed/ 0 751 https://bevtappan.net/2014/11/27/japan-poems-odyssey/ https://bevtappan.net/2014/11/27/japan-poems-odyssey/#respond Thu, 27 Nov 2014 13:14:43 +0000 http://bevpoems.wordpress.com/?p=749 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.

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.