Yamanobe Way Haike & Asuka Rengakai

Over the weekend of Oct. 14/15, eleven members of the Hailstone Haiku Circle took part in an extended event: five completed a haiku hike from Tenri 天理 to Asuka 飛鳥 Station in Nara Pref. (overnighting at the Kaikaro Ryokan in Sakurai) via the ancient Yamanobe no Michi 山之辺の道, with another six members walking (or cycling) most or part of the way. In the afternoon of the second day, a rengakai (linked verse session) was held in the Hyohyo organic cafe beside Asukadera in the ginko-no-renga style using verses composed along the Way, particularly those from Asuka. They were chosen to link onto an uncompleted ginko-no-renga Stephen had brought over from Yorkshire, U.K. a few months earlier. Ten verses have now been added to the ten composed by the BHS Roses Group, and it is hoped the final international product will be published next year. We were blessed with halcyon weather, ripe persimmons and some early autumn colour. The first photo was taken from a vantage point near Omiwa Shrine, looking westwards over Emperor Jomei's 'Dragonfly Isle' (Akitsushima 蜻蛉島, see poem 2 in the Manyoshu) towards the three famous Yamato hills of Unebi, Miminashi and Amanokagu. None of us will forget the almost mystical experience we had there! The second photo was taken in Asuka on the last kilometer of the 27 km haike. Five haiku from the event:

Lark on the wing/The rice fields shimmering/For joy

dragonflies/invading the village/over its moat

lotus leaves drag me back/the path leads me on

Paddyfield on paddy/Stacked up to the peak;/Autumn mikoshi/Leaves its cry.

a farm pond/under rainbow-coloured clouds

(haiku by JD, HM, RD, T, and MSb; a mikoshi is a shrine palanquin, usually gilt, in which a Shinto god is carried, with much shouting, around the village on a festival day; a moat 濠 is a water-filled defensive ditch, present in some of the medieval villages we passed on the Yamanobe Way)