While running through some of the main wards of Tokyo metropolis, I got some poetic inspiration. Just returning from Japan, I got inspired to write something on the plane.
Thank you Guru, thank you Japan.
My favourites are the last ones, about Tokyo.
Tokyo (I)
Asia’s cherry and
Europe’s rose –
In the selfsame tree
Blossoms Japan’s soul.
Tokyo (II)
Citadel of silence
Dreams of the highest
In her answered query
Japan’s five-petaled cherry.
Tokyo (III)
Her body a land of duty
Her vital a fort of purity
Her mind an ocean of silence
Her heart an altar of simplicity
In her flourishes
Japan’s jewel Tokyo –
The joint streak
Of a smile from the Sun
And a tear from the Moon.
Japan (I)
In a land of beauty
Sprouts from the earth
A body of purity and
A temple of silence
Scattering moonlight
In starclad firmament
Sakura sakura
The life and dynamism
And people of elegance
Skies of silence-vast
And Tokyo’s might
All bow to the minute merry
Of Japan’s blossomed cherry
Utsukushii
Japanese language
is that which
the more I know
the less I know
the more I like
the more I like
the more I understand
and the less I understand
– the more I like.
I like its charming childlike sounds
I like its hide-and-seek of words
I like its beautifying of words
I like its addition of non-words to words
I like its love of structure and non-structure
I like its cadence more like a train with a few clear stops
I am refreshed by its simple grammar and few exceptions
and baffled by its writing system
adopted from Chinese and made irregular and chaotic
so that I dare not guess-read the names of my japanese friends
so as not to call them “lion-cub-rice-field-swamp”
and last but not least
I love its loanwordmaking square-type forge
– by that it is made all the more childlike
and all the more beautiful
and I simply love it.
When near you
I am your babe-in-arms.