The 53 Stations of the Tokaido Road
Hiroshige Ando
(1) NIHONBASHI Asa no kei [Morning view]
With identity stamped as same, with backs bent
down with the same burden neatly packed, with high
feathered poles (all take notice that they present
highness-nobility fluttering to catch
at your eye) and a cohort of samurai,
yellow the hats, deep green the cloaks, all to match
in their march as they rise over the bridge, where
nature already is tamed, the daimyo’s trained
ceremonial troop of retainers share
in direction of will on life’s road, in feigned
or resigned or committed faith, which some four
or five peasants and sniffing mongrels ignore.
(2) SHINAGAWA Hinode [Sunrise]
A cool morning. The first of the retinue
passes, with loads balanced as best suits the strain
of a lord’s stamped possessions. Like bunraku
puppets performing perforce — first on the stage —
to an audience, failing to entertain
eyes only half-attentive, they disengage
in dour silence from day’s long demand. The still
aka chochin* serving-girl muses in a
random moment of rest. Out in the tranquil
bay lie the unladen boats, not a mariner
to be seen at this hour; nor does the settled
sky portend any threat in clouds soft-petalled.
* A ‘red-lantern’ bar.
(3) KAWASAKI Rokugo watashibune [Rokugo ferry]
Is a nest under (so far) innocent trees.
Water the effortful challenge now, though calm
as an islanded inlet should be. No breeze
ruffling the reeds or the leaves. Level lines rule
in the sky, in the mists. There can be no harm
here for those patient, waiting. Even the mule
does no more than inspect an itch. On the boat
everyone’s waiting too, turning to minor
matters, leaving the journeying as they float
just to one man, who still seeks to recline a
little down in his heave. All of them forget
there are hints in that thrusting: Fuji’s white threat.
(4) KANAGAWA Dai no kei [Hilltop view]
See the maid: her inviting smile that belies
what the protesting traveller feels, her pick
at his sleeve for the inn. The child in the guise,
uninquired-into, of mother, both bearing
loads, without the more-loaded carrier’s stick,
helpful for climbing this hill. They are wearing
blue, red, yellow, and white, blue of sky and sea,
red of the sunset and white of the sails. Out
in the bay see the fishermen work, half-free,
given to thoughts other than labour. About
all the coast is a calm: buffalo bluffs, isle
like a crocodile, still suggest nature’s guile.
(5) HODOGAYA Shinmachi bashi [Shinmachi bridge]
Like the past or the future the mountains loom
distant and vast and vague. In the present scene
is the wish of the priest to attain the gloom,
silent and still, of the temple. The porters,
though, have thoughts of the ‘soba noodles, sixteen
mon’ that the shop sign offers, but know orders
come with pay. Of the monks, not a one has thought,
cloaked in the blue, why all should be thus attired
in the blue, though through sameness they all consort
so much more readily in the zeal desired.
Quiet under the trees, the thatched roofs suggest
in their shadings the harmony of a nest.
(6) TOTSUKA Motomachi betsudou [Motomachi fork]
He dismounts from the horse painfully, the old
pilgrim. The horse has no idea of journeys
that are taken as life, and for life. In fivefold
blazon above, the signs of the cults make plain
that their pilgrims stop here, so his will merges,
long in the habit, with that would ordain
all the self that he is, and has done. He’s kept,
equally painfully, to the road. He pays
the young servant for help in this, to accept,
quite without question, the way. Beyond, the day’s
last clouds, drawing their lines, and the far-off lane
winding over the hill, to be passed again.
(7) FUJISAWA Yugyoji [Yugyoji temple]
The white mist of the morning is a calm sea
drowning the valley, islanding the temples.
See the road from the town from the torii
drop to a shore of blank opacity. High
among sheltering trees the sacred nestles
safe from the murk of living, as if to die
were to climb those blue stairs into clarity.
Gossip and labour and shopping have begun
with no thought of the end. There is charity
there in the bridge’s timbers for everyone.
Through the gate, testing out their way in a line,
go four blind men in hope to the Shinto shrine.
(8) HIRATSUKA Nawate michi [Path through rice fields]
It’s the courier’s eyes, turned down, and his mouth.
too, in his serious business to show he
has no time for a greeting. Those going south,
bearers already exhausted, merely stare
at such eager obedience. The degree
marking their journey and task can be seen there
in the signpost, bohana,* and notice-boards,
there on the causeway prepared by the choices
of the past. One can run and carry through fords,
over the needful bridge, ordered by voices
now as silent as Fuji, remote in time
as in distance, unknowable, white, sublime.
* bohana: a tall pole marking the boundary of a post-station area.
(9) OISO Tora go ame [Tora’s rain]
From a sky that’s the tint of tin comes the rain:
Tora’s tears falling, the dimness under cloud
just as sorrowful, trees sombre, a dark stain
greying the grass. Nothing gleams in this even
light. The rice-sheaves, well thatched, keep dry, but the bowed
folk huddle under umbrellas, are beaten
with the pestering drops. The horse is as quelled,
piled high with something of value for man, as
his now shivering master. The rain has compelled
all to compliance, for Tora’s lover has
here performed his seppuku* again, and she
again weeps for his death over land and sea.
* seppuku: ritual suicide
(10) ODOWARA Sakawa gawa [Sagawa river]
Hiroshige has rendered the random peaks
darkened with distance, coloured from earth and tree
and the ochreous clean-cut rock with the streaks
shadowed and light to the indigo summit.
Here is chance carved in evening harmony.
Down on the plains man’s creations exhibit
repetition of angle and curve in roof,
castle wall, and that palanquin. The river
here presents its own challenges as a proof
nature persists. The bare swimmers deliver
lord and lady and lackeys quite dry across
the Sakawa in struggle, all without loss.
(11) HAKONE Kosiu zu [Lake view]
There are ways through these mountains. How grand they are,
daimyos themselves, for they reach up into rare
inaccessible spaces, and away, far
over the rest, the pure whiteness of Fuji,
as the Emperor, vanishing into air,
blank in eternal effacement, not to be
understood or achieved, surrounded by his
shadowy courtiers. The human daimyo,
with his pole as his height, so surrounded, is
carried in deference downward, and must go
jolting, swaying, complaining, must sometimes shout
to his bearers when they fail to keep nature out.
(12) MISHIMA Asa giri [Morning mist]
In a mist is the past, reduced to subdued
silhouette, fading, merging, disappearing
to a final pale edge. The present is hued
here in a liveried blue, rounds of yellow,
and a sharp green. The task is of a clearing
forward, though weight restrains. Behind, an echo
that grows fainter: ahead are hopes, half-discerned.
Master and mistress loll in self-absorption,
for the way is their choice, but what must be earned
forces the thrall to choose this as his portion,
even walking in step, for each must keep his degree
as is proved by the shrine and the torii.
(13) NUMAZU Tasogare zu [Scene at dusk]
Beyond sunset. The harvest moon leans forward,
peering too close at the world. A woman stares
at the opposite bank: has she discovered
something disturbing in this peace? Her husband
idly searches the ground. Closest, Tengu stares,
set in dissatisfaction, for he has pardoned
some unwillingly, prophesies woe to some
others, his phallic nose proclaiming power.
And the pilgrim who carries him soon must come
safe to Kompira’s shrine, where his mask will lour
his sour meanings to all. It will there impart
to religion a look that’s a gift of art.
(14) HARA Asa no Fuji [Fuji in the morning]
Is Mount Fuji inside or outside the print?
You’d hear Magritte say ‘This is not a mountain.’
On this wintry day, frost on the marsh, no hint,
save for the crane, the reeds, the grass by the way,
and the people, of colour. Could imagine
all of the picture fading from shadowed gray
slowly back into untouched paper, up there
high with the rising birds, quite out of the reach
of the chisel (or pen), quite out of the air
all of us breathe, which all of us use for speech,
and yet speech could not be without this white peak,
unattainable end of all that we speak.
(15) YOSHIWARA Hidari Fuji [Fuji on the left]
As they pass this bohana they see Fuji
on the left. Just a twist in the road sets
the supreme peak according to the happy
look from that angle. On the sampokojin*
only two of the three do so: one forgets,
drawn into talk. The path does not determine
what is seen, what is thought. The old causeway winds
just where the marsh was shallowest, and each pine
that the labourers planted in its place reminds
all in its silent posture here is a line
that you follow, and, just as silent, Fuji
offers, faint and far off, a neutral beauty.
* sampokojin: a saddle providing three seats.
(16) KAMBARA Yoru no yuki [Snow at night]
See him meditate, leaning on his bamboo
stick, like a young toadstool playing blind-man’s buff.
And another, bowed down, as though the snow grew
there on the thatch of his coat; his gazing
shows he’s looking inside him. What’s no more than fluff
drifting in air settles to weight, erasing,
pasting, bandaging trees, roofs, mountains. The earth
glares in the night with light not from the dark clouds,
an unearthly reversal, disguising dearth
under its wonder, muffling in soft fur shrouds
what it chills. So how has he the impudence
to go bare-legged with such calm indifference?
(17) YUI Satta mine [Satta peak]
There’s a painting of Caspar David Friedrich’s*
where you see three figures, two stretching for flowers
out of reach, at a cliff’s edge, as ecstatics
high on sublimity. Here too, three look down
as they stand on a perilous slope on towers
tall, overhanging, precipitous — they’d drown
if they fell. Even so, in this far, timeless
no-world of inlaid plain colours, ivory,
umber, aquamarine, pearl, such carelessness —
see the one pointing out on the slippery
grass — can never bring danger, death, can never
banish awe in a land that lasts forever.
* Caspar David Friedrich, ‘Kreidefelsen auf Rügen’, Oskar Reinhart Foundation, Winterthur, Switzerland.
(18) OKITSU Okitsu gawa [Okitsu river]
Not only daimyos are honoured. Here two Sumo
wrestlers take purple and fine linen quite for
their fair due, and their bearers know what is so,
slipping on pebbles. War for the samurai
is a game: for the Sumo, a game’s a war,
roared on by thousands in one avid ‘Banzai!’
and both wrestler and warrior know that tricks
win all the victories, that art never is
what it seems, just as here where paper mimics
space, broken oyster-shell patterns rocks, ridges
of sea sand and long waves mere parallel lines.
To appear what one’s not is what art defines.
(19) EJIRI Miho enbou [Distant view of Miho]
Hagoromo well knew how to make divine
goddesses even more beautiful. She had
come to bathe here to make its beauty refine
that of her own. He stole away her feathered
robe as hostage, but not to see her unclad:
something there was, sure, that signally bettered
such bold sacrilege. Here on this wooded spit,
circled by noblest mountains and bluest sea,
he demanded she dance for his benefit
only, and, flattered, she agreed. Later, we
see these patterns of sail, mast, roof, tree and peak
in Takama no Hara, the heaven we seek.
(20) FUCHU Abe gawa [Abe river]
There are three ways of carrying goods and three
ways to take people across — you could say third,
second, first class, according to how you see
cost and the state of your purse. It’s essential
to economies, quite as sure as the word
uttered by daimyos, not just influential,
but as pressing as river currents or hill
slopes. You could say Fukuyama is more
to be heeded than Fujiyama, a till
more than a tale or a picture, than a shore
that’s as flat as the sea, a bay of sand round
the brown headlands, whose summits the eye astound.
(21) MARIKO Meibutsu chamise [Tea-house famous for its local delicacy]
When I look through my magnifying glass I
see some strange stereoscopic effects: just
where the peasant is standing, the ground is high
while the green valley beyond is deep — call it
true illusion, except that his blue coat must
drop as a hole in the hill! Where the men sit
at their meal of tororo,* blue cloth lies back,
faces project, which is right for the one who
sits further in, but it hollows the high pack
worn by the other. Here, then, is false and true:
for the tea-house exists in Japan, whereas
we must surely confess this one never has.
* tororo: tororo-jiru is grated yam broth, still a delicacy at the real tea-house today.
(22) OKABE Utsu no yama [Utsu mountain]
As I child I would love to make water flow
down in a channel from puddle to puddle.
Now all over Japan they’ve made rivers go
neatly in concrete, save where a waterfall
safely proved worth the viewing. Houses huddle
close to the stream that has been tamed to a brawl
over measured-out steps, and the path can wind
smoothly beside it, belying the adage
that ‘good paths seldom follow streams’, One can find
now a much easier way to the village —
through a tunnel, a dark and damp way between
places, missing this solemn, pine-haunted dene.
(23) FUJIEDA Jinba tsugitate [Relay station for porters and horses]
On the right the director has berated
someone for failure, who, while shrinking away,
makes a face. There continues, unabated,
talk between clerk and customers on the charge,
which he checks on his abacus. To obey,
that is the task of the underlings: the large
loads, so carefully parcelled, need transferring
from the exhausted horse to the patient one —
they’re the lowest, it seems, to require spurring.
Who could complain of a system, from shogun
to the humblest of beasts, that sent goods express
on the highway, that kept living in progress?
(24) SHIMADA Oi gawa Shungan [Oi river, Suruga bank]
There are times when one’s office allows a pause.
No one expects a whole procession to fly
over rivers, so none would question the cause
seeing the bearers sitting on the bales they
have to carry, or sharing a joke, would pry
into the murmurs of gossip. High talks to low:
low ventures being the first to speak. The breeze
is refreshing; the cry of gulls, the soft flow,
passing at will, of the waters, all this frees
briefly servant and master alike, who bask
in the time, watch others at the daily task.
(25) KANAYA Oi gawa Engan [Oi river, Totomi bank]
There are litters for nobles, simple bamboo
ladders; for those lower down the social one
piggy-back must suffice, taken as their due
here as they stagger bandy-legged off. The pole
of the master’s still carried aloft, for none
dare make pretence that the strictures of their role
really vanish at moments like this. Twenty
bearers uphold the now empty palanquin.
Human order prevails, ready for any
challenge from nature. But what seems sovereign
to the eye is erasure by sand across
miles, the mountain’s vast volcanic omphalos.
(26) NISSAKA Sayo no Nakayama [Sayo-amid-the-mountains]
The geologist calls it ‘an erratic
block’ that for thousands of years has remained where
the ice left it. Silent, enigmatic,
matched to a ‘sea-beast crawled forth’ upon a shelf
of bare rock in full view in the open air.*
Passers-by stare at the stone sunning itself,
unaware of itself. People make paths by
chance through the grass like sheep, or they mark them out,
lay the gravel, to lead to where there’s a why.
Here there’s a reason unknown; a hidden doubt
haunts us, as with the Hünengrab’s huge presence,
meditated upon with Friedrich’s patience.†
* See William Wordsworth, ‘Resolution and Independence’, stanza IX.
† Caspar David Friedrich, ‘Hünengrab im Herbst’, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden.
(27) KAKEGAWA Akibasan enbou [View of Mount Akiba]
Now, whatever your age, the gusts of the gale
force you to struggle with the invisible;
and perhaps you thought that you wouldn’t fail,
there with your kite, at seeing it raise your hope
to the sky, and at making it biddable,
dipping and swerving and twisting at the scope
of your line, always spiralling with its long
tail in control, not out of it, a firework
spinning high, when it tugged you to run along
after it out of the frame. A sudden jerk,
unexpected — it’s flying back to chaos
beyond reach of ethos, logos — but not of mythos.
(28) FUKUROI Dechan no zu [Outdoor tea-house scene]
They say fire’s a good servant. So is water.
Tea will refresh the messenger, the bearers
of the palanquin. Tea-house at the corner,
fine for the fondling of sore feet. A kettle,
universal in shape, steams for wayfarers,
vapour ballooning to vagueness from metal
most conveniently formed. The fire needs poking;
help often comes when a hot drink is in view.
It’s so pleasant a time he must be joking,
him on the left. But afar off is a blue
you could count up in cups. See it calm today,
broad, deep, endless, like time, fading away.
(29) MITSUKE Tenryu gawa zu [Tenryu river scene]
Near, two ferrymen wait. One, reflectively,
puffs at his pipe, eyeing those who’ve just landed,
while the other, hunked down, introspectively
looks out at nothing; their sturdy boats, wood cut
to exactitude like furniture, stranded
thus much in shingle, are ready. They’ve talked, but
now have fallen to silence. The mist, low-spread,
hiding all but the edges in silhouette
in the distance, is visible silence, dead
still on the river. How easy, then, to forget
of both Tenryus, Big and Little, their muds
can be raked up in rage in the winter floods.
(30) HAMAMATSU Fuyugare no zu [Winter scene]
Hiroshige has marked the halfway point here.
There in the middle the tree and the rising
smoke dispersing to nothing. Seeking cheer
somewhere from cold, kago* bearers consider
both the fire and each other, and one, prizing
warmth on his backside the more, sends a mixture
of his words and his smoke up into the smoke
groping among the branches. The mother stands
as if hesitant — Will the man in the cloak
move to the fire? The castle marks out roads, lands,
classes, genders, clothes, duties. No treachery
though, as here, to find rest at a boundary.
* kago: palanquin
(31) MAISAKA Imakiri shinkei [True view of Imakiri]
Not a ‘true view’at all, and yet a true view.
Once lay a sandbank across the narrows there,
keeping ocean from lake. An earthquake cut through,
leaving an entrance open. ‘Imakiri’
the name, though, it means sandbank. How do you square
picture with name, or with place? — for to query
what you see is the artist’s core intention.
These are not fir trees on earth, each branch dancing
left to right with a spry fan. Mustn’t mention
boats that show water by absence, and, glancing
beyond where those deep gullies point to the peak,
is no ‘glancing beyond’. You find what you seek.
(32) ARAI Watashibune no zu [Ferryboat scene]
It’s a matter of balance. Pressing down requires
effort and art if movement of boat or state
forward is to be kept steady. He who hires
boatmen like this keeps his head down when daimyos
take the trip across. How do you contemplate
circles as daunting? Why does mere blue disclose
rule? On the mast, why should no more than a kite
children could play with make everyone avert
their eyes? Two feathered poles alone are a fright
even though water laps softly. And a skirt
banded green on his boat is a screen from eyes
that are deemed to be prying by those thought wise.
(33) SHIRASUKA Shiomizaka zu [View of Shiomi slope]
A procession is like a choir: all follow
one way of going. They both have composers
setting colours in harmony. As they go,
action and journey combine in one rhythm,
whether marching or singing. Shirasuka’s
valleys and hills determine the way dukedom
either moves or extends, but command depends
solely on hope in the end of the journey
with this being the best way, downhill, round bends,
struggling with pitch, and the matching livery
keeps a uniform key. But still, this vision
of the tune shouldn’t guarantee precision.
(34) FUTAGAWA Sarugabanba [Monkey paddock]
For the wandering minstrels the scattered trees
don’t make an audience, even though they look
like the notes on a stave, but notes that can please
still must be chosen from all that are offered.
There was one line melodic, and, if you took
it, there was dancing or tears, but one awkward
choice, the magic would vanish. The three carry
with them the secret of feeling, but know it
as they play, as they sing. They cannot marry
words to their mystery. Perhaps a poet
may. Musicians must eat. Thoughts of melody
must sometimes give place to kashiwa mochi.*
* Kashiwa mochi: a sweet dumpling wrapped in an oak leaf (advertised on the tea-shop sign).
(35) YOSHIDA Toyokawa bashi [Toyo river bridge]
On the bridge you are kept from an unwonted
swim with the dolphins. The castle, though, blazons
forth their tails on the roof-ends as a toted
totem. A builder boldly leans out, his arm
as a dolphin’s tail too, as his artisan’s
pride is identified with saviours from harm.
Perhaps sees himself too as the protector:
Surely his skill was what made the castle strong
against anarchic nature. The erector
prior to general, to emperor. ‘Long
may the builders be honoured!’ he shouts to air,
but there’s no one save builders his zeal to share.
(36) GOYU Tabibito tome onna [Women touting for travellers]
On the young girl’s face puzzlement. How to make
sense of the squabble among grown-ups? Not so
in the inn. Is it this — how many we’ll take —
business has not been good? Or is she depressed
at the spectacle here? Elbow to elbow,
propping her drooping head, has it made her stressed
to take part in such twilight goading of men?
Goading that’s plucking and prodding — he’ll soon be
over, down on the ground. And a samisen
serves for a geisha to persuade! Inside, he
has surrendered: his feet ached too much. Not love,
but the artist’s printmakers are touted above.
(37) AKASAKA Ryosha shofu no zu [Picture of serving-maids at the inn]
Life’s a stage. There are scenes. At this ryokan*
there on the left enters the bather: he’s warm
from the hot spring, his towel damp. Now we scan
Scene ii: the guest reclines, smoking, and they bow
with the meal. Down the stairs comes one to perform
travellers’ talk with the others, and learn how
his identity changes thus. The palm tree
there by the ishidoro† marks ironic
simultaneity: in secret we see
geishas applying their make-up, erotic
silks a-swish, with hair aristocratically
pinned, ready to greet them ecstatically.
* ryokan: hotel with hot spring bathing.
† ishidoro: stone lantern.
(38) FUJIKAWA Bohana no zu [Scene with bohana town sign]
Horses follow, but dogs ignore it, horses
meant for the emperor as gifts, hence the white
pennants, red harness, blue trappings. The forces
made by a nation compel people to bow,
and one checks that the others are doing right
as the procession goes by. One must kowtow.
Have these fences and walls been made to no good
purpose? And what does the bohana imply?
And the gilded encircled leaf? And it would
offer yourself for punishment should you try
to behave like a dog. Hiroshige’s face
by the horse lets us know that he knows his place.
(39) OKAZAKI Yahagi no zu [Yahagi bridge]
That the bridge is so long Hiroshige shows
by his truncating it at both ends, nowhere
leading nowhere, like birth and death. And he froze
all the daimyo’s procession out of time,
so it goes on forever not going there,
ordered in colours and places that must rhyme
with the ranks in these ranks. It’s what the timbers
brace themselves for in mutual strain. Across,
see on the blue, nested roofs, dolphin figures
saving the castle from fire. But no real loss
can await this lost company, long since cast
into nowhere, the mystery of the past.
(40) CHIRYU Shuka uma ichi [Early summer horse fair]
By the ‘conference pine’ stand all the bidders.
Soon will the auctioneer stand in the middle
by the trunk. At some distance one considers
whether his ponies are worth the risk. Two more
would-be sellers fear if dealers might diddle
them, and are peering as if you saw
from a hundred yards better than two whether
faces looked honest. The beasts show less concern;
they just face as they stand, quiet at tether,
grazing or staring at will, yet to discern
how new owners may treat them; no intention
of revolt, lacking human apprehension.
(41) NARUMI Meibutsu Arimatsu shibori [Famous local product: Arimatsu dyed textiles]
See what trade can do. Arimatsu textiles,
tie-dye and other, are still sold from these very
shops. Just add a few people with their mobiles,
wires round the roofs, white cars humming by, neon
signs aglow, some strange English, and some cherry
trees in avenue rows, a wedding salon,
a Pachinka parlour or two, and you’re in
modern Japan. But these colours do retain
their old freshness, a robin red, a lupin
blue, with their patterns butterfly, leaf, striped, plain,
that can catch at the eye of someone in haste
or the leisurely look of ladies of taste.
(42) MIYA Atsuta shinji [Atsuta shrine festival]
Are there any sports holy in a Western
country? Our hooligans shriek identity
traumas, chanting together all to deafen
anyone who dares not to support their team
in a cry that has gained its intensity,
stewed many years, from failure of care, a scream
from neglect of respect, for whom a ‘dissing’
asks for revenge. These holy ones here are dressed
like our fans and are shouting as loud, missing
nothing of fervour, devotion, to be best
in the race, but their rivalry’s at a shrine
where to lose still has something of the divine.
(43) KUWANA Shichi ri no watashi guchi [Seven ri* ferry approach]
Now we see them up close, those tilted oblong
sails. They are reeded like parachutes to save
you from having to chance crossing three strong
rivers between Miya’s quay and Kumana’s.
Down they come as ships ride wave after wave
into the smooth welcome within the harbour’s
walls, hexagonally packed. How secure they must
seem to the seasick Tokaido passenger.
Even daimyos could suffer sour disgust
none of their minions could cure, and a sailor
might look on with some superiority,
for once not at a loss with authority.†
* ri: a measure of distance, roughly two miles.
† See the Boatswain in William Shakespeare, TheTempest, Act I, sc, i.
(44) YOKKAICHI Mie gawa [Mie river]
What a gale at Yokkaichi! How funny
seeing the man chasing his hat! And his face!
What a grimace of woe! Not ‘How unlucky!’
comes as first thought, but schadenfreude, itching
to explode as a laugh. It improves the race
seeing the round hat bowling along, pitching
ever further away! The other man is
troubled, but flappings of cloaks don’t constitute
jokes (unless he fell in!). Fun in Japan is
not so much different from ours. It’s such a hoot
when our enemy nature catches them out!
(That we fear for our safety there is no doubt.)
(45) ISHIYAKUSHI Ishiyakushiji* [Ishiyakushi temple]
It’s the temple’s the focus — for the farmer
harvesting here, building high the beehive sheaves,
for the porters with goods, for the traveller
paused at the gate. A Buddhist priest found a stone
giving light, and each faithful soul now believes
Buddha is living in stone. By him all’s known
whether rice or the burden or patient horse,
tall trees or small, every house in the village,
all the paths and the roads of the human course,
foothill or mountain. For industry, tillage,
art, science, the faith of knowing is Buddha,
made by our ancestors through the millennia.
* Ishiyakushiji: Stone Buddha temple.
(46) SHONO Haku u [Heavy white rain]
Just how real is this? On the umbrella
held by the ones who are fleeing straight downhill
we read ‘53’; also the print-seller
here is revealed — more than an advertisement:
it is cocking a snook at the view that will
take it as real rain on the paper. Tyrant,
blinded philistines, wanting a picture to
‘look like it is’, won’t see the sharp rivalry
in our struggle with nature, nor the taboo
fact of antagonism in comedy
and in tragedy. Art prefers a fierce strike
on the psyche where phallic trees turn beastlike.
(47) KAMEYAMA Yukibare [Fine weather after snow]
We know height makes for safety for castles, but
daimyos must climb to them; horse, soldier, bearer
find each step a risk. Snow’s thick white garb’s a glut,
stuffing the twigs, doubling trunks till they become
photo negatives, draping slopes to fairer
shapes, putting monks’ cowls on village roofs. But numb
fingers, sliding feet, faces as stiff masks, urge
all to the gate and to warmth. The whole hillside
is smoothed, swept to the vale; varieties merge
meekly, are delicately still. In their stride
men are trampling their way, printing through the snow
part of history, choices stamped as they go.
(48) SEKI Honjin hayadachi [Early morning departure from the daimyo’s inn]
Just how is it a circle around a cross
neatly inlaced with loops is a part of all
of these men? And their black cloaks too. What gloss,
hidden in handsome pattern, varying hue,
size and shape, could be read to mark lackey, thrall,
steward, samurai, the daimyo, with slate-blue,
with symmetrical loops and lines, with awnings
keeping out, keeping in? Is its beauty in
minds, or indifferent to loyalties, fawnings,
empty obedience, love? Is there doctrine
in an emblem? Can colour be mimetic
of a culture? Or ethic be aesthetic?
(49) SAKANOSHITA Fudesute mine [The brush-throwing mountain]
It is said that the painter Motonobu
threw down his brush having tried to paint this scene,
hence the name of the mountain. Art isn’t true,
though. Hiroshige kept his chisel.
Ask, then, what are the virtuosi so keen
on as they muse on the beauty; abyssal
awe as waterfalls vanish into green ink?
sombre precipitousness, where the trees cling
as black lines and black dashes? And the far pink
sunset surrenders beyond the crest, lying
just as near on the print as the farmer’s lad
who ignores the whole prospect, as does his dad.
(50) Haru no ame [Spring rain]
Hear the river in spate, enthusiastic
plungings continuous, upwellings that seethe,
bubbling freshly forever. The stochastic
rain, where the closest is heard first and distant
later, all at once, wide patterings that wreathe
times into one, a bourdon as persistent
as the drips from the trees. The knockings of shoes
over the wooden bridge are what has to be
heard, and creakings of weight, for ears can’t refuse,
prompt to react. Do the sounds distract the free
thought of minds in or out of the print? Absurd
to suggest it where no sound’s to be heard.
(51) MINAKUCHI Meibutsu kanpyo [Famous local product: dried gourd shavings]
It’s the women who make it, we say. The gourd,
planted and tended, does come from nature,
though selected through centuries, and matured
only with skill that traditional knowledge
can ensure. In the present, those who labour
might in temptation be led to encourage
themselves in the thought that the credit’s all theirs.
Sunlight, however, makes dry all the shavings,
and tradition still lives of which they’re the heirs.
Yet fair to say that, though theirs are the takings,
that’s what ancestors hoped, that prosperity
would extend from the past to posterity.
(52) ISHIBE Megawa no sato [Megawa village]
One must dance for the god. To keep in rhythm,
watch what the others are doing, and they’ll watch
you, a pleasure both mutual decorum,
mutual joy. Others from the inn watch too,
not with critical eyes to see if they botch
it, but to share, to join in the joy, renew
in imagining what it’s all for as one
carries a load, walks one’s way, acts out the role
to the rule, keeps the rule to the role. It is fun
being a pilgrim, a journey for the soul
on its journey. That way, death is not a doom
nor the ominous island an ancient tomb.
(53) KUSATSU Meibutsu tateba [Famous product rest-stop]
The Tokaido and Nakasendo roads meet
here. Hence the crowd and the hurry and the busy
teahouse. Travellers must pause, find something to eat.
Others must rush off on their journey. Kago*
bearers, now they’re refreshed, make their charge dizzy —
swing him about, make him sure they want to throw
him right out, so he clings to his handhold like
any bus passenger today. And these four
grab their sticks, grit their teeth, stare right ahead, strike
out keeping step. How relaxing to ignore
such precipitate haste, discuss our Japan,
smoke, gaze, snooze, amuse the girl with the fan.
*Kago bearers: litter-bearers.
(54) OTSU Hashirii chamise [Hashirii teahouse]
To make rice cakes your own speciality
argues inventiveness, for what could be more
universal than rice? And the purity,
trumpeted everywhere, of Otsu’s water.
What a welcome for those who arrive, therefore,
at this penultimate stage! Whether porter,
water-carrier, waggoner, or daimyo,
humblest of food and drink can restore
and revive. Yet the sellers have time to sow
gossip; a waggoner can stare and still draw
at his ox; and the carrier there still may
give in now to the little girl’s shouts to play.
(55) KYOTO Sanjo Ohashi [The Great Sanjo Bridge]
On the Great Sanjo Bridge comes the wished-for close,
so it would seem, of the daimyo’s great purpose.
For the ladies of court an opposite shows
time brings beginnings. Soldiers’ and bearers’ tread
does betray their fatigue, but, all unconscious
of such obscure indications, the well-bred
dames, with glances averted, from the intent
corners of eyes still inspect for what reveals
hierarchical worth. What can orient
sexual choice for either gender are seals
of society, manifests of the flesh
that bring lovers together, cause mortals to mesh.