an old writer and his words

  • SEPPO’S WOODEN BALL 鐵笛倒吹 八十九

    The teacher rolls a wooden ball past the students seated around his feet. Will you pick it up and return it to him? The teacher rolls a wooden ball past the students seated around his feet. I sit still and let it pass. Which of us deserves the stick, which a silent smile. Buddha is…

    Lou Faber

  • SUSHI

    We sit around the Tatami table thankful for the leg well redemption for aging knees, and socks without holes. We drink the sake warm and cold, and the Sapporo from the oversized bottles each pouring for the other as a proper host must. Several recall nights on Roppongi, or earlier on the Ginza, moments lucid…

    Lou Faber

  • SOZAN’S FOUR DON’TS 鐵笛倒吹 九十二

    You may seek to follow the path of the dove, for a fool knows many roads. You may wrap yourself in fine linen, an infant wears only his skin and knows this moment is already gone. Think long before you speak of how to walk along the path, of where it leads. The baby says…

    Lou Faber

  • BEFORE THE TEMPLE

    They stood at the altar of the ancient temple and prayed for peace. They lit the joss bundle and placed it in the great cast iron burner. We all bathed in the smoke of a hundred bombs falling in perfect harmony.

    Lou Faber

  • ARRIGATO, GAZAIMUS

    The old man walks slowly through the opulent lobby the light of the triple chandeliers refracted into a thousand spectra that dance on mirrored walls. The guard gently touches his elbow steering him as though he is blind drunk, while the bellman walks a step behind, like Charlton Heston through an invisible sea. The man…

    Lou Faber

  • GYOZAN DRAWS A LINE 鐵笛倒吹 八十三

    At the end of a long day of discourse the teacher may ask the student what have you learned. How should the student respond. The student may raise a finger and trace a line in the air of a fading day. Which, I ask you is the teacher and which is the student? A reflection…

    Lou Faber

  • SEASONINGS (HAIKU)

      above only sky beneath only dark gray clouds the sun is content a mountain of clouds rises from white tufted bed the earth is watered in winter’s icy chill ripples from autumn’s pebble await the spring sun the leafless ginkgo taunts the first snow of winter with the dream of spring

    Lou Faber

  • FUJI

    Looking out the window of the Osaka bound train at the great snow-covered mountain I saw, for just a moment my face on its slopes. Staring down at the train hurtling across the fields, the great Fuji smiled briefly before returning to its stony stare.

    Lou Faber

  • WINTER TOKYO

    A skeletal tree stands too many winters bones grown brittle, crackling ashen gun-metal gray, Tokyo Bay at evening’s onset a bird perches, staring at a last leaf clinging knowing frozen earth awaits. It is winter, sap pools in roots seeking earth’s dying warmth. We warm our hands by the fire, as bones of other trees…

    Lou Faber

  • MARCH APPROACHING (HAIKU)

    Winter dies slowly under the jay’s watchful eye harbinger of spring. The ghosts of winter hide behind the Sun, the hawk hears them. Frail pink petals fall onto slowly warming earth the winter concedes.

    Lou Faber