The Lake
When I traced back to the origin of this mortal flesh
It was the soul of a gemstone on the lake's floor
This warrior's ancestor - it was a swan
Ages ago, the gemstone longed to be one with the swan who soared the skies
The swan saw through to the love that hid on the lake's floor
And across the skies, the two were joined
That secret love lived on into the descendants of that spirit
The swan's blood flows through you - the warrior
These are the reasons for such painful unrequited love
I turn my gaze away willfully, acting distant
I yearn to spin and dance beautifully, but never, never
Show what lies inside this heart, behind these eyes
And this face blooms, ever, as a flower blooms
Unable to bear the piercing pain
I quietly lock my anguish in the silver box in the palm of my hand
Into the waters I let fall the box, into the waters I follow
Body and soul into the mirror surface
To become a ripple, sparkling silver and gold
When will this love join its love When will this love be fulfilled
One day, when the tears that fill this box explode in a shower of light
Burning you, so that your ashes become sand of silver and gold
When the sand turns to ripples of silver and gold
Joining and marrying with my waves The poignant story will reach its climax
The long hidden and unrequited love will be joined at last
Forever and always
RAIN
The rain Sweeps away the many Works of man In a deluge of fury
Weasel's cuts(1)break bonds And a swathe of foliageFills the horizon
The caress of a graceful lady
Echoes off the canopy Scribing preludes in D-flat major
Though she has stolen many a love Her children are legion She is Mother-Goddess
of Destruction and Rebirth
Cleanse them! Cleanse these inept,
Incompetent artists! Pound their flesh with the wind
And strike them with your mallet of fortune (2)
The tumultuous earth settles Is that a breath of life stretching sunward?
"Hail Mary!" "Hail Mary!"
I wrote this poem based on the various Flood legends and "Great Mother"
goddess imagery found the world over.The model for the Great Mother in
this poem, although concealed in the Western fashion, is Japan's own almightyAmaterasu-omikami, the Sun Goddess. Maritime Japan, Land of the Vigorous Rice Plants, Land
of the Sun Goddess,is also a land with an image of Amaterasu as the Water
Goddess. That is also the model image of this poem.(1) Cuts in the skin as though from a sickle. They result from exposure to the vacuum created by a cyclone.(2) A metaphor that is similar in meaning to a cornucopia or an Aladdin's
Lamp.
This poem adheres to the theme of secret love, regarded as important by
the poets of Japan's Heian Court, as represented for example in the line:
"Should my mortal threads remain firmly anchored, their tethered position
will weaken my resolve for concealing this secret passion."To express
this concept in a phrase, hisurebahana comes to mind. I injected images
of totems and a woman's unrequited love into this theme in devising the
above poem. |