Nakasendo Waypoint #22

Synchronized swimmers

With bright green legs:

This year's rice.

On the turntable:  Ry Cooder,  "Music of Ry Cooder"

Sunday Papers: Charles Bowden

"Now there is talk of walling off the river lest some Mexican come north and terrorize us with decent food."

--Bowden writing about the Rio Grande

On the turntable:  Tom Petty, "Pack Up the Plantation"

On the nighttable:  David Gordon, "The Serialist"

Nakasendo Waypoint #21

All throughout Kiso Valley,

The persistent flow of water, 

A reminder of the passage of time.

On the turntable:  Ernest Ranglin:  "Gotcha"

Nakasendo Waypoint #20

Bright blue butterfly,

A gentle fluttering kiss 

Off the windscreen.

On the turntable:  "Rise Robots Rise" 

 

Nakasendo Waypoint #19

Who would expect

This many blossoms

This late in Spring?

On the turntable:  Pat Metheny, "Travels"

Nakasendo Waypoint #18

After spring rains,

Magome trees 

Exhaling clouds.

On the turntable:  Moby, "Destroyed" 

Nakasendo Waypoint #17

Footfalls shuffle across Ena's petals;

Percussive compliment to Levon Helm

Singing soulfully in my head.

On the turntable:

Sunday papers: Henry Miller

"Writing is like life itself, a voyage of discovery'

On the turntable:  Std Straw, "Think Too Hard'

Nakasendo Waypoint #16

Noisy "Yawp!" of young frogs 

Reveals their return  

But not their whereouts.

On the turntable:  Dave Douglas, "The Infinite"

In Osaka today...

...my heart is still in greener spaces. As in the mountains, rows of pink flank the rivers, dot the hills. In Shin Osaka station, I'm stopped dead by the sight of a massive photo of a mountain ridgeline. This same photograph, in its incarnation as a newspaper cutout, used to hang over my desk in the 'Nog. I'm still struck by the shape of the mountainscape, my feet long to wander her flank. Yet her identity still remains a mystery.

Down in the streets, I'm still dwarfed, still humbled, but here it is by steel and glass. At a glance, I see branches and twigs piled atop themselves in an industrial garage. Two steps on, at a glance, I see that they are hoses and lengths of twisted metal.

Here the air is far less fresh. Sidewalk smokers continue to Speak Lark...


On the turntable: Grateful Dead, "Hundred Year Hall"
On the nighttable: Kaoru Nonomura, "Eat, Sleep, Sit"

Nakasendo Waypoint #15

Pointillist pink
Calls to a close,
This long, long winter.

On the turntable: "Thirtysomething" (OST)

Nakasendo Waypoint #14

With billowing columns

Of wind-swept snow,

Asama relives her eruption.

On the turntable: Stump, "A Fierce Pancake"

Nakasendo Waypoint #13

Sunbeams strain through

Shioda Plain cirrus.

Flirtations of Spring.

On the turntable: Ry Cooder, "Music by Ry Cooder"

Nakasendo Waypoint #12

Pushing on

Through ever deepening snow,

As friends write of blossoms.

On the turntable: Oingo Boingo, "Boingo Alive"

Nakasendo Waypoint #11

Hard blowing snow

Challenges our footing

Over Jizo Pass.

On the turntable: Oingo Boingo, "Only a Lad"

Nakasendo Waypoint #10

Violent storm

Washes us off the Nakasendo,

Into an Italian bistro.

On the turntable: Leonard Cohen, "Old Ideas"