RETURN JOURNEY

RETURN JOURNEY

This world was most delicately painted. How can this screen
Have languished out of sight in this place, its outer cover
Gathering dust all these generations come and gone?
Unfold it, now. Here again on one side, the long shoreline,
The crests of the waves high, the sky of varying moods.
On the other -- unfold it carefully; no one has opened it
Since the Fujiwaras ruled the land -- the mountains keep
Their distance, their white peaks skeptical and unwelcoming,
On the other side of the field, patches of white sand
Interspersed with low-floating clouds of Japanese pinks
Rustling and undulating, their living motion breathing at the base
Of the still and silent range lifting up the indecisive sky.

From out of this panel come singers. Three women. Their song
Speaks in beauty of a place we have never seen, of a family
Of singers who have patiently hoarded their art and passed it
Along like prized jewelry or a well-shaped nose. After giving us
Their story, and these careful moments of ordered emotion,
And leave them humming on the breeze behind them,
They leave us too soon, taking their music back with them
Into the mountains, into rough weather, savage places,
Uncertain harborage for the night.

We journey on. The shoreline unrolls to our right; the mountains
Unfold to our left. Each sheet, each panel carefully taken from life,
Time and youth left in its place. Where are we going, after all?
What are we to do when we get there?

A man comes out of nowhere and begins speaking to us,
Walking alongside our caravan. He has lived in this screen, his life
Folded away from the light, for untold years. "I have been here,"
He tells us, "and surely I will be here again. It's true.

"I tell you, it's all true."

He accepts some food and walks away again.

The wet wind off the surf salts our faces and hands. The odd
Cross-breeze from the mountains tells us of a world
In dispute with itself.

Did you have anything planned?

Nor me, really.

We retrace our steps. There it is, the mountain the singers
Were headed for. Let us share their fate, whatever it is.
We head in towards the land. The cool white sand is grateful
To our suddenly bare feet. We weave in and out among the pinks,
Unwilling to bruise them. Every flower is a reason for going to
A place of flowers: thousands of reasons bob their heads in
The breeze. The world can only take so much. Let the mountain
Grow in our view, and gradually become home. Leave the screens
Open behind us. Someone else will come along, and fold it up,
And put us away.