Homework to spirituality...

The gods lived here once, I know, where the grass still pushes between the cracks of stepping-stones and trees bend like old men over souvenir shops. Once, only the birds knew their own names and the foxes belonged in their own folklore. Moss, pushed now into forgotten corners, creeps like a stranger onto unshadowed sidewalks. Rivers fell where earth chose to end, mountains leveled where rocks chose not to rise. Spirits gave homage to spirits in the dry of hollowed logs, lighting vacancy only by moonlight, plucking ripe offerings straight from the tree and calling cherry blossoms to their damp face.

This place once harbored its own symphony; summer rains fell in a soft jazz of ivory and ebony keys, wind gasped between the bamboo thickets and fluttered in a drastic dance of tumbling red leaves. The biwa now, no matter the skill of fingers upon its strings, is but a carnal mimicry of the cicadas’ passionate requiem. Cliffs, steep and crowded against each other and the sky, echoed one another’s voice as softly-pummeled drums. Deer ran on three quick strings while wolves pursued on delicately stretched skins. Now, it is only the spring flowers that remember their bow-struck descent.

The gods once lived here, I think, beneath these stones of cement and in the wood of crimson-painted temples. They poured streams from the sky, raised insects from the soil, sacrificed holy deer and rebirthed them under wooded canopies. They once asked only the price of bravery to walk their unbeaten paths and cared not for the small metal disks that do not dissolve like the leaves do. They once gave all they had to give without a thought of a returned favor, save the respect to fear their omnipotence and beauty.

Things have changed now. Birds have become the sparrows, the egrets, the kingfishers. Great soulless structures house identities in plaster and gold, wrapped in the garb stolen from husks of farmed moths. Deer - protected, fed, fat - fear not the last wolf slaughtered without rebirth under a canopy molded from iron. Spirits – greedy – pick pockets and feed on the expense of a wish and prayer. Moonlight pales next to neon, raccoon dogs grin guilefully on the steps of shops. The cicadas are annoying, the cliffs are hard to climb.



Pay ten dollars, see the great Buddha, bronze head ripped from foundations of earth. These steps have been here hundreds of years, River’s corrosive labor spanning a century of centuries chipped and molded easily by hammer, nail, hatchet. This stream directed this way, that river stopped at that point. Move this mountain, cultivate that field. Too many trees, not enough streets. Too many mountains, not enough buildings. Too many rivers, not enough canals. Too many instruments, not enough conductors. Too many gods, not enough practicality.

Trees to lumber to houses.

Rocks to tar to asphalt.

Gods to spirits to imagination.

Nature to dying to dead.

The gods lived here once, I only but suspect, when a sparrow sings like a dove, or when the temple creaks like a tree, or when the buildings echo each other like softly-pummeled drums.