an old writer and his words

  • REFRAMED DREAMS

    In my reframed dreamI am sitting in a smoky bar,bathed in the neon of Roppongi.with the sour smell of Sapporo and Asahiwafting up from the beer-damp floor.I don’t want to be here, wantto be miles and miles from this placein the shadows of Mount Wakakusawalking slowly through Todai-jiin search of something I haveyet to find,…

    Lou Faber

  • THREE TANKA

    As the sun riseseach morning the Great Egretslift into the skyas we stand fixed to the ground.We now can feel their pity. Little Blue Heronsstare into the clouded skyknowing that the sunwill soon reappear and stealaway with the morning chill In Todai-jisika deer await the bellthat signals the endof morning zazen and startlooking for tourist…

    Lou Faber

  • A DRY GARDEN LAUGHING

    In the heart of Nara Parkthere is a five story pagoda.Deer appear, standing sentinelalong the lantern lined walk.Up the unseen hillthe Temple bell announcesthe full arrival of morningas the Golden Buddha awakens.Young children can seeall of this through eyesunlensed, and fetter free.They watch cloudsrelease a cascadeof tiny maple leaveswhich flow over sitting monks,a stream washing…

    Lou Faber

  • OLD HOTEL, NARA

    Stepping into the hotel, it was like being dropped into a truly alien world. Nothing shiny, no excess of glass and marble. A simple dark wooden reception desk, a clerk in black with a white vest. A bow upon approaching. Your room is simple, no internet, a single light on a small desk. A tatami…

    Lou Faber

  • WEATHER KARMA

    It never rainedwhen I visited Senso-jiand Todai-ji Temples.I attributed this to goodfortune, the Buddhaclearing the skiesfor my visit.The young monksaid the Buddhacares nothingfor weather, soI should thankthe Japan MeteorologicalAgency although theynever seem to givehim the weatherhe truly wants.

    Lou Faber

  • IN SILENCE

    Sitting in stillness, the silenceis at first shocking, deafeningin a way unimagined but there.Within the lack of sound liesa thousand sounds younever heard in the din of life.You hear the young monk at Senso-jiapproach the great bell and pullback on the log shu-moku, straining.You hear the laugh of school agedchildren hand in hand walking throughthe…

    Lou Faber

  • SENSO-JI

    By hour six, the plane was just a lumbering beast dividing the sky, halfway from God knows where to nowhere special. His body cried for sleep but he knew he had to deny it. That much he had learned from prior trips. For when he landed, made his way painfully slowly into the city, it…

    Lou Faber

  • KENSHO

    Tonight, if all goes well, I will bea monk in a good-sized Buddhist temple.I am hoping it will be in Nara,at Todai-ji perhaps, or Asakusaat Senso-ji, or better still somewherein Kyoto, although it might well bein the Myanmar jungle or somewheredeep within the Laotian highlands. One problem with that world isthat I have no control…

    Lou Faber

  • NARA

    It was inside Nara that it finally slipped away. Its tether had grown ever weaker, the first slip was decades before, a book, brief meetings an answerless question. It stretched further in Tokyo, basin incense under the watchful third eye and hung perilously by fewer and fewer threads until, with the monks’ gentle bow, it…

    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