川ぞひの
柳のいとに
かかりけり
残る氷の
かたわれの月
In the willow fronds
along the riverbank
caught
like lingering ice—
a half moon.
— Otagaki Rengetsu
The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space. ~Italo Calvino
Commonplace book of a teacher, poet, and counselor.
川ぞひの
柳のいとに
かかりけり
残る氷の
かたわれの月
In the willow fronds
along the riverbank
caught
like lingering ice—
a half moon.
— Otagaki Rengetsu
Sakura flowers
blossom as they always do,
though less visited.
Sakura blossoms
unviewed in the quiet wood,
they come and they go.
No one comes this year
when the sakura open,
yet they are brilliant.
Staying home this year
but the sakura still bloom
in every heart.
Not radiation,
but cherry blossom petals
fall from my shoulders.
Written in response to some articles describing how Japan’s oldest cherry tree, in Fukushima, was no longer visited after the nuclear power plant meltdown. (sakura = cherry blossoms)
My table for one
in this lonely coffee shop
crowded with couples:
one coffee, an empty chair,
her photo for company.
In a sky of ink
an orange three-quarter moon.
So much like my heart:
the portion that still remains
shines brightly, undiminished.
— Michael Boiano
Messages of love
like this season’s flying ants,
in swarms, silver wings,
drifting against my windows
where they hit the glass and die.
*
None of it’s for me,
my life is a world beyond love,
well beyond its reach.
At times I remember it,
the dried husk of an insect.
*
Love between others,
once somehow charming to me,
only leaves me cold—
I turn my eyes from
the held hands of passersby.
*
Where my heart once was
is something new I don’t know,
a place of ruin.
And this is how it must stay—
a cold, forgotten graveyard.
*
My prayer is simple:
Let this muscle in my chest
be suddenly still,
and let its physical form
match the spirit that was there.
—Michael Boiano
I’ll begin this year
without you, one day ahead,
you still in last year.
How strange to be entering
our first new year before you!
—Michael Boiano
Firsts following firsts,
New Year’s Day, this day of firsts.
But I’m wondering
how far into the new year
I must wait for our first kiss.
—Michael Boiano
She’s too far away
this biting cold New Year’s Eve.
Twenty tolls into
the temple bell’s midnight song,
I’ll no doubt be fast asleep.
— Michael Boiano
Only two mikan
to share my first bath of a
year moments old.
Absentmindedly I count,
the temple bell fills the night.
— Michael Boiano
* mikan are small Japanese oranges, a nice scent floating in the hot bath
** every New Year’s Eve at midnight, the temple bell tolls 108 times
Traffic jam at dusk,
a light snow falling softly,
and from the back seat
a child singing “Silent Night”—
my first Christmas in Japan.
—Michael Boiano
Now, at forty-two,
I recall one wet winter
sixteen years ago,
a favorite professor
who was around this age then.
You’ll find, said he,
while buttoning his raincoat,
as you get older
you’ll have to be more careful
when the weather’s gotten bad.
I couldn’t fathom
how drizzle (or students) seemed
to make him edgy,
but I’d try hard to hold the
umbrella closer to him.
Something in this rain,
or in the wanting faces
of my own students now,
and I think I understand
his restlessness that winter.
Today, leaving class,
rain lashing four ways at once,
and I almost laughed
when a boy, umbrella raised,
tried to shield me from the storm.
—By Michael Boiano and dedicated to Prof. Carter Wilson, UCSC
(“Tsuyo” is Japanese for “Rainy Season.” This was written some years ago while I was teaching at a university in Japan)
