an old writer and his words

  • WINTER FALLS ON JAPAN

    Upon the peak of Mt. Fuji the first snow is shrouded by the mother clouds. In the shadows, rice shoots stare up in reverence.

    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

  • 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

  • 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

  • A SOUTHERN WINTER (HAIKU)

    In the dark of night clouds gavotte across the sky we awake to rain There is no snow here – we dream of Fujiyama imagine winter. A thousand cranes rise take wing over the city smiling at the sun.

    Lou Faber

  • KANSAI

    I droplets torn from cloud bed cling to edges of windows wanting to grasp, torn free by wind they are pulled clawing backward. II over Osaka pillars of light rise up through holes in the cloudbank, it is gray rain puddling on tarmac built into the bay. III container ships draw fading wake lines on a…

    Lou Faber

  • DISEMBARKING NARITA

    You disembark quickly a small bow to the flight crew, and walk briskly to immigration. The young man glances at your passport and embarkation card hands flying with the stamps. The baggage is offloaded onto the creeping segmented belt yours the fifth through the heavy plastic flaps hefted onto the cart. The customs agent pauses…

    Lou Faber

  • VAIROCANA (NARA DAIBUTSU)

    Daibutsu, you sit placidly staring down at the throng that slowly bows before you. You can small the faint essence of the joss sticks wafting from the great cast iron pot outside the massive doors. “Do not act as if the world were real” you whisper, or so it seems to my chilled ears, “it…

    Lou Faber

  • PADDIES

    At first it is a checkerboard of ponds neatly arrayed, reflecting the sun, the work of man, for God so rarely plays geometrician with creation, less often still using right angles. Soon enough green blades reach up through the shirred surface, random, reaching for a sun they can never touch. Later, it is a field,…

    Lou Faber