Selections from TRAVELOGUE OF WEATHER-BEATEN BONES

I LEFT MY RUN-DOWN hut beside the river during the eighth month of 1684, placing my trust in my walking stick and in the words of the Chinese sage who said, “I pack no provisions for my long journey—entering emptiness under the midnight moon.” The voice of the wind was oddly cold.

Weather-beaten bones,

I’ll leave your heart exposed

to cold, piercing winds

On the bank of the Fuji River, we came upon an abandoned child, about age two, its sobs stirring our pity. The child’s parents must have been crushed by the waves of this floating world to have left him here beside the rushing river to pass like dew. I thought the harsh autumn winds would surely scatter the bush clover blossoms in the night or wither them—and him—in the frosty dew of dawn. I left him what food I could.

Hearing the monkey’s cries—

what of the child abandoned

to the autumn wind?

I arrived at my old village early in the ninth month. All the grass beside North Hall had been consumed by frost. Nothing was the same. My brothers had grown gray at the temples, wrinkled around their eyes. All we could say was, “How good to be alive, to meet again!”

My older brother opened a small amulet, saying, “Bow to your mother’s white hair. This is like the famous jeweled box of Urashima Tarō—your own eyebrows have already turned gray!”

I wrote this after we had all shed our tears:

If I took it in hand,

it would melt in my hot tears—

heavy autumn frost

I wandered on alone into the mountainous heart of the Yoshino region where great white clouds piled high among mountain tops and rain veiled the valleys. A few woodcutters’ cabins dotted the hills. The sound of axes ringing on the western slope were echoed by eastern mountains, only to be answered by temple bells that reached my very core.

Of all the men who have entered these mountains to live the reclusive life, most found solace in ancient poetry, so it might be appropriate to compare this countryside to Mount Lu, where many famous Chinese poets sought seclusion.

I found a night’s lodging at a temple hostel:

At her fulling block

she makes beautiful music,

the good temple wife

Saigyō’s thatched roof hut once stood a few hundred yards from the inner temple, and could be reached only by way of a narrow woodsman’s trail. It looked across a deep, breathtaking valley. The “trickling clear water” made famous by the poet could still be heard.

With clear melting dew,

I’d try to wash away the dust

of this floating world

If Po-i had been Japanese, he’d no doubt have washed his mouth here. If Hsu Yu knew of it, he’d have washed out his ears here.

Autumn sunset had begun while I was still on the mountain trail, so I decided to forego other famous sites, choosing to visit the tomb of Emperor Go Daigo (1288–1339):

At the royal tomb—

and what does it remember,

this “remembrance grass”?