Elaine
Starkman
SMALL FIELDS OF VISION: JAPAN
Distance thrills you. You have less an idea of time or date than he as a man of time, you a woman of space. Transport your bodies through both. The self constructs itself like pixels construct a picture. You think about a site called “Pure Land” not far from this place. You cannot enter it.
Welcome to Matsue
Say “Good morning” in Japanese. Bow to those who pass you. Do not walk on the yellow grid even if it feels good under sore feet. It is for the blind. Do not spit anywhere (unlike in China). Please wash your bottom in your hotel room; there is a Western toilet. New tooth brushes await you. In the mineral bath, bathe your sallow skin. Purify yourself four times. Sit on the small stool even though you may not like it. Lift the wooden bowl; fill it, throw water in one rush down your back. For you we separate sexes—no Grandfather’s old dong peeking beneath the water; here just Grandmother’s old breasts floating on its edge. You may drink water freely everywhere but not from this ladle. The mouth must be free of all dirt. Be courteous. When your return to your room, there is a fresh robe waiting. Rest assured you are welcomed to our country any time.
Music: Koto and Shakuhachi
Plucked koto thrills you; zither and harp speak to hidden parts inside your skin. With Japanese flute it sings east and west. The flutist, a rail-thin young man is in traditional dress. He must be like the young tourist who was killed in western clothes at a California BART Station. For a moment inside the music, you try to feel where and who you are. You don’t know such severe politeness, Such anxiety to please. Something looms deep among those over 50, but not in youth. Like everywhere, history be damned…they didn’t make it; they won’t live it.
Questions
Is this the year of the Rooster? What does a peacock mean? Is anything simply what it is or always a symbol of something other? How many vending machines exist here ? Are there prisons? Is there a rabbit in the moon pounding mochi? Does “Arigato” mean “Go to Hell as well as Thank you?
White Men
What have they found, those who come here to live, scholars who present nightly lectures, American master of ikebana, white grandsons of banished missionaries, Catholic turned Buddhist Monk, lecturer on the writer Lafcadio Hearn? With and without Japanese women, white men who couldn’t find a place in their western worlds….
(Put down the Japanese Times. You don’t need to know of worldly tragedy, much less local murders of two children here. Or local baseball games. Or accidental pornography that suddenly pops up on TV. Close it along with the foolish talk You’re with your American wife. We’re out to see something else.)
Along the Castle Moat
Your lively boatman sings seems content with himself and his world has a small radio to accompany him How unlike the motorless boatman of China in their endless poverty. The Chinese have not conquered their former enemy; the Japanese have joined with theirs—in certain matters....
Questions
Who said, “I learn only to content myself”? When we visit someone in the hospital, do we take off our shoes? Why is there only past tense and “not-past” tense? Has anime grown out of the samurai/shogun past? What is the difference between our violence and theirs?
Internet Café: Lost & Somewhat Found
You are both hopelessly lost. A young man gives you a ride to a internet /disc café in his subcompact steering on the right. The even younger manager in tee shirt brings you strong ice tea, stays with you in a private booth until you learn “@” is on a different key on a dual language keyboard. You ask the manager if they have koto discs. No. He asks you if you want sake. No, Arigato. Do you want to hear Elvis? No, Arigato. He looks you over. It’s not easy to tell a white woman’s age. More Arigatos and the driver insists on taking you back to your hotel. In the darkness you see fewer cars than you thought you would but be careful of the bicycles on the sidewalks. As you enter your small hotel an obese white couple follows. You’re grateful when you hear they’re speaking German.
Train to Kyoto
Airports bullet train station roofs the countryside astounds neat rice paddies blue-green trees In Matsue people bow to their cell phones here they do not, but they may leave their shoes in the hospital hallway. No homeless on the street just two old neatly dressed monks doing their holy work while all ignore White gloved cab drivers wait patiently doilies fluttering when doors open. No need for vulgar tips.
Love on the streets
The pain of love is a constant theme;
thus it is good to age; one suffers less
or with wisdom, little…
You catch the eye of a 50ish man with streaked gray hair and yet another perfect black suit. He glimpses both of you in sandals, glimpses how you and your husband entwine arms although neither of you is young. Does he feel shame or wonder why is he so samurai-like in his endless pursuit up the business ladder?
Museums: The Miho
Omniscience rising from mountain tops of earthly paradise, Don’t dub it Shangri-la for fear of folly as you pass through to another world. Pure land? Cathedral of sloping glass clears the mind only more resplendent for not knowing neither its ideal nor existence
Kyoto Night anagram of Tokyo
What sleek young people all in black with sake in hand. How handsome Celebrating a marvelous opening some kind. Asian New York Japanese MOMA. Ah! Merely a new business? Disapointing. Still, you wish to enter the glass building to chat with them, but there is no possibility, not even a foolish conversation on American icons One catches you peering in the window and quizzically stares back another faux pas?
In yet another museum
Here your mother and her small collection of chinoiserie show up, not Chinese but stamped “Made in Japan.” You never liked ornate patterns useless decoration silly long foreheads of sages porcelain lacquer cloisonné. Two years after she died you gave it all away not knowing its value. Now your daughter loves it because you didn’t. You muse at art half way around the world sorry you were so insistent on what’s in and what’s out sorry you let the collection stand between your mother and you.
Gihon District—Geisha
Young geishas pass through narrow streets of small row houses on impossible shoes. You glimpse painted beige lines along their necks their white porcelain faces with small rims of untouched skin red lips legion kimono. You keep changing minds on their long history that doesn’t mesh with today, with Hollywood Awards. Is it glamour they want? Money? True ties to tradition? Mastery of dance and instrument? You forget books you’ve read films you’ve seen. Yes, they’re here
Mt.Hakusan
Countryside sky blue-green trees bluer than home neat rice paddies modern ancient roofs of passing houses solid, protective artifice art growing natural pleasing everything groomed shaped you walk up many narrow stairs to see small white papers quiver in the wind written in sacred kanji knotted straw embellishes the shrine clap your hands with as much or as little intent as you have two young women dancers float above the floor trance-like no division between material and spiritual gods of the Divine Forest here you are moved more than anywhere else for the unspeakable cry if you wish pray but not for souls of War Criminals even if you are a Prime Minister, one who refuses to wear black Still, the world watches both of you, you and the dancers
Kanazawa Kenrokuen Gardens
Everything groomed moss gardening is art found haiku appear:
Old trees have poles to hold them up
Old people, canes, old writers, poems
Not everything can be cured
Outside the gardens: Ainokura Village
Historic site preserved steep thatched roofs dwelling built 300 years ago now a utopian cooperative you long for, but see how the numbers dwindle….Even in its beauty you know it impossible for you Even if you’ve seen 100 idealized paintings
Questions
Did you know Nijo Castle has singing floors? What about Jews in Japan?
Home Visit—
You embrace their small circle of children at your feet
May the burden of sins of all ancestors lighten;
May post-modernity unlock us from one belief
One pace from gaps among seeing feeling understanding
May silver pheasants appear in both our lands.
Tokyo
On the street knock-kneed small girls wear knife-pleated skirts and straw hats with little kitty pins their mothers in jeans or black business suits a tint of red in their dark hair. A punk teen in black tee with incorrect English lettering. Past the imperial palace and the Harvard-taught princess who is not well; cannot see the public; cannot produce a male heir; remember she was schooled in the west…the second son’s wife is said to carry a boy, thus he will become emperor. She too was schooled the west.
Now between skyscrapers past the theater you glimpse Colonel Sanders and new scaled McDonald's-shaped arches. Look! An enormous bank. Forget all those old films, Rashomon, Hiroshima, Mon Amour, Woman in the Dunes, the old stories, Patriotism, Swaddling Clothes. Forget what a good shopper you are Step outside your life Aprês guerre… translated into Japanese: aprue geru The past is another country you can’t reach: Ask him if you can start over again this one was his idea There’s something here you want to know He smiles sadly
Progress rises from ruins progress progress Things change on a yen No one says “Hai” here The Emperor is not god. A “just war.” Internment camps, Past, American suffering Past Japanese suffering Past Current wealth Future Technology. Soon you’ll gather your luggage with its presents cross Rainbow Bridge and wait it out at the airport you’ll cross time zones but the body will know
Leave taking
Gather your luggage with all its presents
You close your eyes dream you’re in
an open groomed space with rivers
the color of cherry blossoms
Elaine Starkman lives in the East Bay of No. California where she writes and teaches. Her latest class is being held at the Cal State Hayward Extension Concord, CA., Osher Life Long Learning Institute. She also teaches for Lehrhaus Judaica, Berkeley. Her work has appeared in eclectic publications. After years of writing in all genre she's veering toward combining them into prose poems.
