Travel enlightens

A few days ago, quite late at night and after yet another Good-bye party for Seika graduating students, somewhat illigally soddened and very much rain soddened, I took a wrong turn, got on some unknown highway and traveled thru to the dawn which found me in a suburb of Baghdad under fearce early morning fire. Across the street was some open shop where, I thot I could ask directions while ducking shrapnel. Before i could get off my bike, the shop took a direct hit and was evaporated as in a dream. Looking for better cover, I found the ruins nearby of some villa which still had an exquisite garden in tact. Crouching there, what to my wondering ears should appear but the sound of a breeze in one of the trees. I was not alone; a single, small bird was listening with me. Being ever the poet, as are you, the reader, I quickly dashed off these two hymns, as it were:

this small garden's tree sings,
a day in May;
one tiny bird and I,
both pleased.

wind in a May tree,
a sound hardly ever heard
in the city's streets

It is wonderful how well wine and wandering work together for art.

Uluru

Bringing their tribute from the four corners of the earth, ... people, animals and plants. For what? For a rock; the Rock of Ages, a smooth red monolith pitted and creviced like the moon, horrendously old. The sun is not yet risen, but the living things collect to worship it - hands, in the mudra of awe; tails, flickering; leaves, trembling. Desert morning chill. With the first beam of horizontal sunshine, the gargantuan Rock glows like an ember. Then the crowds disperse.

A while later, near Mala Puta, my circuit pilgrimage begins. The Rock, ever on my right, rises up for hundreds of meters quite sheer, in capes and coves, some parts strangely perforated, resembling cavities in bone. Beneath a few of these, boulders have accrued, providing shelter for the tribute-bearers of dawn and dusk. In places, cave walls have been daubed with symbols in ochre, clay or charcoal: fire-sticks, stars, waterholes and snakes. Here, we are all part of a universe reduced to bare essentials, through which we move silently but mindfully. Rock fig and bush plum, aborigine and white, wallaby and skink - we wax and wane as the desert seasons pass. Uluru alone aloof, foursquare. An eye in the deep blue sky is watching us.

I come to a cave where Kuniya, the ancestral python, is thought to have her lair.

A clutch of giant stone eggs
In a scoop of red-striped rock -
Through spinifex grass,
The autumn breeze.

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***HAILSTONE PUBLICATIONS***
HAILSTONES (2001) a haiku chapbook ￥700 (sold out)
LOST HEIAN (2003) a Japan-in-Asia haiku gathering ￥800 (discount price for last copies)
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Lost Heian and Enhaiklopedia are currently available at Junkudo, 7F BAL Building, Kawaramachi, but no discount price for LH
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***EVENTS***
(PAST: documents are in other posts.)
March 12, 2006 Mt. Ogura Is Shedding Tears Part VII.
May 7, 2006 Ginko under fresh green leaves. 新緑の大山崎吟行

(FORTHCOMING: for some events we still need organizers; offers and ideas through the COMMENTS key, please!)

SUMMER (Jun.-Aug.): Rengakai, Kukai or Rodokukai Sharing? July or Aug. Organizers: Jane Wieman & xxx.

AUTUMN (Sep.-Nov.): 1-2 day Haike (haiku hike). Prob. October. Organizers: David McCullough & xxx.

Ginko under autumn leaves. Kyoto. November. Organizers: Moya Bligh & Keiko Yurugi.

WINTER (Dec.-Feb. 07): Rengakai, Kukai or Rodokukai Sharing? Prob. January '07. Rendezvous: Hankyu Aikawa, Osaka. Organizers: Mari Kawaguchi & xxx.

May 7 (Sun.) 06: O-Yamazaki Ginko Report.

May 7 (Sun.) 06: Report. “Ginko under fresh green leaves,　新緑の大山崎吟行”
Light rain- Six hailstones of JW, KY, 2 MKs, DM and HM gathered in front of Hankyu O-Yamazaki station. Mr. S, a haiku poet, was an official voluntary O-Yamazaki guide for us that day.
First he told the history of this area in the O-Yamazaki History Museum. My personal three key words were the junction of three rivers (the Uji from Lake Biwa, Katsura from Kyoto Towns and Kizu from the Yamato Basin) where the Yodo begins to flow to Osaka Bay; Tai-an待庵, a Tea-ceremony Hut, built by Sen-no-Rikyu (1522-1591); and the Decisive Battle of Ten-no-zan by Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi in 1582.
Secondly we enjoyed seven Monet pictures of water lilies in O-Yamazaki Villa Museum of Art. Nice potteries by Bernard Leach, Kanjiro Kawai and other potters. As well, the hazy view from the terrace of the Kizu near the river junction, Mt. Otokoyama, Yahata and southern Kyoto towns and especially, wet fresh green leaves nearby in the rain.
We ascended a steep path looking up at purple paulownia flowers to visit Hoshakuji Temple where 11-faced Bodhisattva, Yama (the king of hell) and Daikoku-ten (one of 7 Lucky Gods) waited for us. - Readers can see a nice haibun with a Yama picture by DM in another Post.
We then descended a steep slope exclaiming, “O! The snail! Here!” to the foot of Mt. Ten-no-zan, at which we found the Sokan’s Haiku Monument: Sokan’s hut for Haikai-no Renga meet, Kan-non-do Reisen-an 観音堂霊泉庵, is said to have been there. うずききてねぶとに鳴くや郭公(uzuki kite / nebuto ni nakuya / hototogisu) May comes - / shrilly cries, / a laughing cockoo.
After late lunch, the finale of ginko was visit to Suntory Yamazaki Distillery. We studied zymurgy through the process of barley budding (malting), its fermentation with yeast, repeated distillation for spirit and its long-term aging to yield whisky. I saw Bacchus jumping around on casks piled up in the big, dim aging storehouse! In appreciation of the hard study, we enjoyed Suntory products such as whisky or “Nacchan” fruit juice.
Still lightly raining. Ginko punctually finished.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to S-san for his nice planning and guidance. Otsukare-sama!
(We are to have Kukai afterwards and haiku in this ginko will be opened later in another Post).

Hell

Many thanks to Hisashi Miyazaki and Mari Kawaguchi for organising an excellent ginko in O-Yamazaki. A full report will be posted soon but here's my response to visiting the fantastic enma - a larger than life group of sculptures depicting the King of Hell and his acolytes deciding on the fate of the newly deceased - at Hoshakuji Temple.

face to face with

THE KING OF HELL

my atheist heart shudders

Maybe May

Who can tell these days where we are in the mish-mash of weather surrounding us? Snow and lessor hailstones in April, thunder and sky-electricity bringing in May, freezing continued in March and Feb. was lost altogether to warm breezes. Earlier times, we would blame all this on the Communists. Not now. The Greeks? No doubt. They know much about life and poetry, and how to stay out of a fight while threatening one. I like that. Tough-bluff. Weather also figures often in their literature, and in their daily lives.
Here's a thing writ on Tinos Isle, after seeing Mary's Holy Winds blow believers to their knees:

On their knees, in prayer, in pain?
Mary blesses penitents always

The winds of Tinos in January are fierce. The church there, the main reason for going there, demands that believers crawl up the slope from the dock as a show of their unworthiness yet keen desire nevertheless to be absolved of their countless sins. Anyone foolish enough to try to walk up gets knocked down by the gales off the sea. Once, on my rented 50cc, heading thru the countryside for the volcanic peak, I was lifted up and disposed next to a dove-cote, where I was instantly devoured by man-eating pigeons. Mary blesses always, however.