Skin and Bones

Journey (5) Village in the Vale

An imaginative evocation of Basho's Journey to a Far Province through my daughter's marathon walk down the length of the U.K. from northern Scotland to Land's End, Britain.

The landscape photograph below depicts the rural trail, at the left, followed by my daughter as it rises to a broad field above a vale. A village is nestled among the trees along the small river, which is out of sight. Farming fields with hedge rows or other boundary vegetation are plotted in the distance.

In the center foreground at the edge of the field is, as I read the image, the real center of interest--three benches. I am sure my daughter felt called to the benches for rest and relaxation and the opportunity to enjoy the serene pastoral view.

For me the photograph is complex, constituting a montage of smaller, simpler photographs. I cannot read the original photograph as shot in terms of Basho's poetic journey; so I have broken it into its constituent images. I will try reading each of these sections in Basho and adding appropriate interpretive text later. Click on the image for a full-size (500  pixel wide) photo in a popup window.

Original Image as Shot by My Daughter

Constituent Images (for study only, in no special order)

1.

2.

Yamanaka Spa

"We bathed in the waters of Yamanaka's hot springs. In curative powers they are second only, people say, to the hot springs at Ariake.

Yamanaka's waters be
Better than chrysanthemums
For longevity!

The proprietor of our inn, still a youth, was called Kumenosuke. His father is said to have been very fond of poetry, and the story is told here of how a  young, aspiring poet from Kyoto was so humiliated by the innkeeper's superior poetic ability that when he returned to Kyoto he took lessons in composition from Teitoku, and went on to become the celebrated poet we know at Teishitsu. When famous and much sought after, Teishitsu would never accept payment, people say, from these villagers for criticism or correction of their poetry."

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

The Road to Eihei-ji

"Walking about three and a half miles towards the hills, I visited Eihei-ji. This temple was founded by the Zen Priest Dogen. I believe he had some noble reason for establishing his temple so deep in the hills and well outside the 'Thousand Li Radius' of the capital, Kyoto."

8.

9.

10.

11. (Enlarged image only 393 pixels wide.)

Kanazawa

"A poem composed on the way:

How hot the sun glows,
Pretending not to notice
An autumn wind blows!"

12. (Enlarged image is 600 pixels wide.)

"Bugles calling for them from sad shires."

(Though Wilfred Owen's famous Anthem for Doomed Youth was written as protest against the slaughter of World War I and hints of pacificism in its despair, I think the powerful imagery of the last line of the second stanza is worthy of this moment in English history.)

Journey (4) Rural Message

An imaginative evocation of Basho's Journey to a Far Province through my daughter's marathon walk down the length of the U.K. from northern Scotland to Land's End, Britain.

Rural Message, Basho, My Daughter, and Me

Click on the thumbnail for a 500 pixel-wide blowup (in separate window)

The North Road. "We were exhausted and went to bed early, but in a nearby room I heard voices I judged to be those of two young women. The voice of an old man mingled with theirs. I gathered they were ladies of pleasure from the port town of Niigata, in Echigo, on a long pilgrimage to the Grand Shrine at Ise. The man had come with them as far as this barrier, and they were writing letters for him to take back to the Niigata the next day and giving him sentimental messages to deliver. As I listened, I wove into their whispers an echo of a poem by a courtesan of long ago."

(Click on the thumbnail image for a 500 pixel-wide photo of the mail box.)

Journey (3) Narrow Village

An imaginative evocation of Basho's Journey to a Far Province through my daughter's marathon walk down the length of the U.K. from northern Scotland to Land's End, Britain.

The Narrow Village, Basho, My Daughter, and Me

(Click on the thumbnail below for a full-size (500 pixels wide) image.)

The next day, we went to the village of Shinobu to see the stone against whose rough, naturally patterned surface textiles had been mottled long ago by rubbing fronds of shinobu, or hare's foot fern, over the cloth.

In a tiny hamlet at the foot of a distant hill, we found the stone, half-buried in the earth. Some village children came and told us that the stone used to be at the top of the hill, but people going to see it kept pulling up barley to try their hand at rubbing, and the farmers were so annoyed that they dislodged the stone and sent it rolling down into the valley. They children said the stone lay face down. Their story was quite probably true.

Young hands planting rice!
Erstwhile I see them rubbing
Ferns with equal grace!

Basho, "The Shinobu Mottling Stone," Narrow Road to a Far Province.

Journey (2) Ruin

An imaginative evocation of Basho's Journey to a Far Province through my daughter's marathon walk down the length of the U.K. from northern Scotland to Land's End, Britain.

The Scottish Ruin. Basho, My Daughter, and Me.

Crossing the river by the Tsuki-no-Wa (Moon Halo) ferry, we reached the post town of Se-no-Ue (Above the Rapids). The Sato Castle ruins were said to be near the hills about three and a half miles to our left. We were told to go to Saba Moor near the village of Iizuka, and as we went in the direction, frequently asking our way, we came to a spot called Maruyama (Round Hill). It was upon this hill that the famous warriors' castle once stood. We were directed to the foot of the hill, where the sight of foundation stones of the Great Gate moved us deeply.

In the grounds of an old temple nearby were the tombstones of the Sato family. I was particularly affected by that of the two  young brides of the Sato brothers. Battle-widowed, they donned their husbands' heavy armor for the sake of their mother-in-law who had longed to see her sons ride home victorious. The gallant gesture of those gentle women will never be forgotten, I mused, wetting my sleeve with tears. One did not have to travel to far-off China to see the "Weeping Tomb," for here, before this very stone, who could refrain from shedding tears.

"The Site of the Satos' Maruyama Castle," Basho, Narrow Road to a Far Province.

(Click on image for an enlargement. It is worth the wait for download.)

She Told Her Sister About What She Saw On The Scotland 3-Day Tour

She look'd and saw that all was ruinous.
Here stood a shattered archway, plum'd with fern:
And here had fall'n a great part of a tower,
Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff:
And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers:
And high above a piece of turret stair
Worn by the feet that now were silent, wound
Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy stems
Claspt the gray walls with hairy fibred arms
And suck'd the joining of stones, and look'd,
A knot, beneath, of snakes, aloft, a grove."

Tennyson (adapted from "The Marriage of Geraint," from Idylls of the King)

(Click photo to enlarge.)

They Met at a Pub

And what if my descendents lose the flower
Through natural declension of the soul,
Through too much business with the passing hour,
Through too much play, or marriage with a fool?
May this laborious stair and this stark tower
Become a roofless ruin that the owl
May build in the cracked masonry and cry
Her desolation to the desolate sky.

Yeats, 'My Descendents,' from "Meditations in Time of Civil War," from The Tower (1928)

(Click photo to enlarge)

Revised. January 30, February 1, 2005.

Journey (1) A Long Way to Go

This diary is an imaginative evocation of Basho's Journey to a Far Province through my daughter's marathon walk, July - October 2004, down the length of the U.K. from John O'Groats in northern Scotland to Land's End in southwest Britain. My daughter took several hundred photographs of her journey, from which she has let me select the following images. The emotionalized variants are my own work.

Clicking on the images will yield enlargements that show more and clearer detail. Do click - they are worth the download wait.

Northern Scotland - Basho, My Daughter, and Me

Having such a long way yet to go, I was filled with misgivings to think I might be taken ill again. But though I might die on the road--on this journey to far and remote places off the beaten track--I was resigned from the beginning to the evanescence of human existence; and if I fall by the wayside and die in a ditch like a beggar, it will merely be my fate.

As I mused thus, I gradually regained my spirits a little and was able to tread the earth with firm and resolute steps, and we passed through the Great Gate of Date quite jauntily.

Basho, Narrow Road to a Far Province, "Iizuka"

With Hilda Doolittle

Evening
(H.D.)

The light passes
from ridge to ridge,
from flower to flower--
the hypaticas, wide-spread
under the light
grow faint--
the petals reach inward,
the blue tips bend
toward the bluer heart
and the flowers are lost.

The cornel-buds are still white,
but shadows dart
from the cornel-roots--
black creeps from root to root,
each leaf
cuts another leaf on the grass,
shadow seeks shadow,
then both leaf
and leaf-shadow are lost.

With Shih Ching

Let Me Gallop, Let Me Go
Shih Ching (tr. C. H. Wang)

Let me gallop, let me go
To share with the Lord of Wei, my brother, his woe!
I'd urge my horse on the long road
Till I should halt at Ts'ao!
A deputy has journeyed over the grassland and streams.
My heart is stricken with grief.

You have denied my wish to travel;
I cannot go back like that.
You think my plan baleful;
I have no way of relieving my sorrow.

You have denied my wish to travel;
I cannot be crossing the river.
You think my plan baleful;
I have no way of stopping the thoughts.

I climb the sloping hill,
To pick the toad-lilies.
Thoughts abound in a woman like me,
Sure can find her way right to follow.
The people of Hsu blame my intent;
These people are childish, presumptious!

I walk into the fields,
The grains are thick and rich.
To a great land I would plead for aid,
But where shall I go, on whom can I rely?
O you great officers, nobles,
Don't lay blame on me:
The thoughts of all the hundred of you,
None can really match my single proposal!

With Coventry Patmore

A Farewell
Coventry Patmore

With all my will, but much against my heart,
We two now part.
My Very Dear,
Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear.
It needs no art,
With faint, averted feet
And many a tear,
In opposed paths to persevere.
Go thou to East, I West.
We will not say
There's any hope, it is so far away.
But, O, My Best,
When the one darling of our widowhead,
The nursling, Grief,
Is dead,
And no dews blur our eyes
To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies,
Perchance we may,
Where now this night is day,
And even through faith of still averted feet,
Making full circle of our banishment,
Amazed meet;
The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet
Seasoning the termless feast of our content
With tears of recognition never dry.

With Robert Burns

My Heart's In The Highlands
To be sung to the tune: Failte na Miosg
Robert Burns

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Chorus.-My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the mountains, high-cover'd with snow,
Farewell to the straths and green vallies below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart's in the Highlands, &c.