pigeons

October 27, 2022

IN SILENCE

Sitting in stillness, the silence
is at first shocking, deafening
in a way unimagined but there.
Within the lack of sound lies
a thousand sounds you
never heard in the din of life.
You hear the young monk at Senso-ji
approach the great bell and pull
back on the log shu-moku, straining.
You hear the laugh of school aged
children hand in hand walking through
the Temple grounds as pigeons gather.
You hear the cat, sitting at the foot
of Daibutsudan, staring out
and the deer waiting at the gate.
You hear your breath and that
of a million others as they sit
on their cushions sharing what is.

Publshed in As Above, So Below, Issue 9, August 2022
https://issuu.com/bethanyrivers77/docs/as_above_so_below_issue_9

February 3, 2021

A DEAFENING SILENCE

Sitting in stillness, the silence
is at first shocking, deafening
in a way unimagined but there.

Within the lack of sound lies
a thousand sounds you had
never heard in the din of life.

You hear the young monk at Senso-ji
approach the great bell and pull
back on the log shu-moku, straining.

You hear the laugh of school aged
children hand in hand walking through
the temple grounds as pigeons gather.

You hear the cat, sitting at the foot
of Daibutsudan, staring out
and the deer waiting at the gate.

You hear your breath and that
of a million others as they sit
on their cushions sharing a moment.

October 24, 2016

THROUGH GAIJIN EYES

1.
From the window of the hotel bus
the small, squared fields
are a green that only painters achieve,
deep, intense, unreal.
As the bus inches forward
along the Narita–Tokyo expressway
the green forms neat rows set off
by a shimmer of the gray sky mirror
that bathes the young plants.

2.
Tokyo is a city of great precision
where there are few birds,
and even crows are well mannered.
At Senso-ji Temple, it is left
to the pigeons to give avian life
to a sprawling city.

3.
There are uncountable cars, trucks
in Tokyo, motorcycles
dance among them like small children
grown bored with the wedding dance.
A rainbow of taxis fill the streets,
form unending lines, snake
around the large hotels and office towers.
There are forty taxi companies
in Tokyo, each with its fleet, but all
of the drivers are male.