A little diversion

Hello.

Not feeling very prosy this afternoon, but rather more rosy. So, I have been tinkering with a couple of odds and ends left over from my epic poem Takaaki (which, yes, I am still working on).

Anyway this little diversion speculates about what it might haven been like to wake up to a lovely morning at a ryokan (a traditional Japanese Inn) in Japan...


Painting in Japan
After Hokusai

For N.E.D.


This morning I awoke to a shade
Of pink without parallel. A new one.
I lay there studying the shadows made
By cherry trees, elbow on your futon.
Limbs danced on window blinds—my mind—a fan
Hiding a Nōh player, a young man,
Performing for his Shōgun on a stage—
Not cherry—darker wood. But the image—
Flirtatious as it was—as all Art is—
Seemed so substantial! No telephones
Rang, no sirens screamed, no thumps, no groans
Excited curiosity, no his-
Sing radiator ventilated steam;
Nothing—not a whisper—intervened

To disturb our universe. We lay
In Kanagawa. I looked at my shoes,
Determined to spend the rest of the day
Immersed in other colors: Fuji blues,
Pearls of foam, pale boats, dark tsunami,
The tight red lips of geishas, tan tatami;
I would suspend the world in clouds of pink
So soft cherry blossoms on the brink
Would close their eyes unable to resist
Repeating, “This is Heaven. Where I land
Is immaterial. I’ll have one hand
In Heaven always.” Oh, they are persist-
Ant things, these pastel petals, floating there
Forever. Such ambition is so rare.