Kyoto 1969 – A Tanka Memoir
- On the Eve of Departure Kristofer S, the Daoist scholar,
enters my dream as a big-eared elf
Those archaic paradises, he tells me,
hard indeed to recapture - The Long Flight West The plane is taking a northern route
through the window I watch Orion
huntsman of the winter skies
his star-sword guarding our flight - Tokyo Arrival Airport anxieties- a swarm of gnats
swept away by a gust of wind –
scatter as Polachek, my friend,
greets us with his breezy smile - Thinking of Joan Strange how after all this time
the memories of that year flood back
but so few of the sweet wife who came with me - First Impression After the bright lights of the city
the strong smell of tatami mats
and kerosene space heaters - First Morning – a Slight Booboo at Breakfast I pass some food with my chopsticks
the conversation stops
“We only do this at funerals
with the bones of the deceased” - Kyoto University – Meeting my Professor An imposing man Ogawa Sensei
a scholar of Tang poetics
I only met with him that once
yet his face is still clear in my mind - Kyoto University – Why We Met just Once All year the students throwing cobblestones
police with shields and teargas
professors in endless meetings
and high up on the Administation Building
the face of Che Guevara! - Roger Pulvers My great good fortune, meeting Roger Pulvers
writer and linguist, refugee from America
from the war in Vietnam, the lies in high places
young man making a new life in Kyoto - January Night – Cry of the Roasted Chestnut Vendor Throwback to another century
the chestnut vendor makes his way along
the cold night streets, pushing his heavy cart
calling “amaguri” – chestnuts hot and sweet! - Country Noh at Kurokawa Long journey north by train through frozen landscape
February – village under snow
but warm and hospitable our hosts, these farmers
all through the night, cold sake goes around
while we watch the old myths danced and sung - Eiheiji Hidden away deep in the snowy mountains
this austere temple, meditation hall
monks on their zafus face the wall and learn
to light an inner fire against the cold - I-Jing Reading The Buddhist monk who throws the yarrow stalks
is offering me a gift intangible
but precious, regardless of the reading.
His kindness is a presence in the room
Ah, here’s the hexagram – no more to say! - Kamo River Along the bank, women still dye their cloth
a deep indigo blue
in my memory the swaths
of fabric stretch a hundred feet or more - Cormorant Fishing Boats lit with lanterns, the skilled fishermen
work lines tied to the rings around the neck
that keep the birds from swallowing their catch
black birds, black river, blackness in my heart - The Chinese Bookstore Here in a myriad green and red bound volumes
three thousand years of poetry, philosophy
food enough for this and many lifetimes - A Visit from the Assistant Librarian Three weeks after the suicide he comes to me
a golden skeleton, clockwork heart still ticking
reaching behind his ribs, he takes it out
showing me its platinum perfection - Potting Village The kiln is a dragon sloping up the hill
it’s belly full with the whole town’s handiwork
it’s fire will breathe not destruction
but the rich brown glaze
for which this place is famous - The Temple at Midorogaike A great carp – blue and white
finning in the temple pool
“How old?” I ask. The monk just smiles and holds
his hands a foot apart. “When I came here
a young man, sixty years ago, already this big.” - With Friends at Daitokuji hearing of Thomas Merton’s Death The news blew through us like a sudden gust
we knew that far off a great tree had fallen
scattering a thousand seeds - Meeting the poet Nanao Sakaki Laughing, he said he’d walked for many days
in rain to reach the city, and each day
the people were more rigid in their movements
“We should be learning from the worms, he said,
and demonstrated, wiggling his body - The Noh Mask Carver Akiko-san, who loved my Russian songs,
made wooden masks. The hardest thing, she said,
to carve the face of a woman her own age
tradition called for an impersonal image
but somehow her own features would emerge - The Puppet Theatre in Osaka Bunraku puppets – about half human size
but once the play begins they metamorphose
into full-sized people over whom
the giant heads of the puppet masters float
in space like voyeuristic gods - Gagaku Performance at the Palace Court music brought from China
twelve hundred years ago
It seems to have slowed with age
till it hardly moves forward in time
but conjures up timeless space - The Rainbow Tribe Comes to Town Long haired Japanese hippies
dancing in the park
such colorful contrast
to the straight-laced Kyoto crowd - Mizutani-san
This one I met in a coffeeshop
saw my loneliness, took me home
we talked about Dylan, the Stones
hugged briefly and slept apart
two young men struggling to find themselves - Polachek Comes for a Visit With his graceful Japanese girlfriend
the three of us walk around town
I buy her a peacock feather
an offering to a young goddess - Civil Rights March in Kyoto I walk along with the folks protesting
discrimination and school segregation
for Japanese of Korean descent
later, when agents come asking
I’ve nothing to tell them, nothing - Undergroung Railroad Or maybe they came because I’d heard
of people helping American soldiers
AWOL from the ugly war
the havoc in Vietnam - Two Lacquered Wooden Bowls This is a craft Kyoto has long been famous for
and I can see why – the bowls are beautiful
ricebowls, the insides natural wood
the outsides deep red lacquer - The Buddha’s Smile A figure from the Dunhuang caves sits smiling
from a poster – something in that smile
I’ve never seen anywhere else, something I need
to know – or at least know about
before I go
- A Director of the Fulbright Program Resigns
He came down from the Tokyo office
this good man, to tell us Fulbright fellows
how he’d learned that the program was used
by the CIA, and his principles
left him no choice but to quit
- Fate of The Student Movement – A Mural on a Wall of the University
A volcano erupting – fire and a great
column of smoke rising in the air
and above the volcano, hanging in the sky
a pair of pretty lips, rouged with lipstick,
sucking all the smoke up as it rises
- Polachek’s Argument For Quitting our Academic Careers
F. Scott Fitzgerald had it right
(Check out his story The Break-up)
the only way to be happy,
is to leave it all behind and start over
(I wasn’t convinced at the time)
- Oscar Ghiglia’s Kyoto Concert
He played beautifully, this Italian
especially the Homage to Debussy
De Falla’s one work for guitar
the next day I bought the sheet music
just starting to acknowledge my first love
- The Kohno Guitar
I found it in a shop in Osaka
a fine guitar made by Japan’s best maker
but back in California it seemed to speak
Japanese, and I wanted Spanish
now I’m sorry that I ever sold it
- Manga
Under the tables in the family diners
racks with magazines to keep the kiddies
and grownups occupied. My first taste of manga
the violence and erotic undertones
surprised me, though I imagined it’s success here - Arrival of the Aliens I dream I’m running in the night
flat out through a frozen landscape
looking up I see great wheels of light
spinning slowly in a moonless sky
So beautiful, I tell myself,
it’s good they’re taking over - Vision of The Ancient of Days Voice thundering, his finger sets these words in stone: “In the last days, fires will consume the cities. Those following the mountain path alone will live.” Then I’m rolled over and over till I wake to the next level, body bruised and shaken
- Reading Dylan Thomas in Kyoto I come to the words of his Prologue to the Reader “For song is a burning and crested act, fire of birds…” and perhaps for the first time ever I see myself clear
- Tanuki Spring’s here, and all at once this funny badger-dog is everywhere ceramic statues, male-parts oversized kintama – golden balls – a celebration of flowing sap, life’s energies renewed
- Faces of Westerners after 6 Months in Japan Now that these faces seem a natural range these Western faces look rather like masks grotesque in their exaggerated features God forbid I should be one of them!
- Academic Conference in Tokyo I spend the day with Polachek in Shinjuku and after the boring papers have been read aloud by uninspired scholars, we go back and drink cold sake till we’re both dead drunk futsukayoi – hangover – one word I won’t forget
- On the Bullet Train to Tokyo “My comprehension’s better when I can follow lips” I tell her, hoping she’ll take off the hygienic facemask and it’s true, but the real truth is I want to see her face
- Joan’s Affair I learned about it from her letter she’d gone back early to California met a fellow on the boat I knew I’d been treating her badly and so I felt both sadness and relief
- First Time Reading Yosano Akiko’s Tanka Here – an exhuberant passionate voice, the originals
clearly less forced than the stilted rhyming translations
40 years later she’s merited worthier efforts
but still I treasure that first translator’s book - The Buddha’s Feet At Nara, a great statue of the Buddha
Shakyamuni, huge by human standards
the toes immense, yet just a miniature
when I consider how the Buddha’s footsteps
span galaxies, reach out across the universe - Sidetrip to Taiwan Though I’d studied Chinese in college
at the Lim family gardens near TaiChung
a caged mynah bird harangued me
with Chinese more fluent than mine
- Obon Festival at Daitokuji
The festival of souls – let’s make them laugh
who knows how grim the afterlife might be
and so these serious monks are busy painting
on paper lanterns the silliest cartoons!
- Turning 26 – July ’69
The war in Vietnam has kept me
in school these seven years
no longer “eligible” for the draft
I begin to imagine another life
- Packing to Leave
Nine months have come and gone
often it seemed to go by
slowly – now it seems all too fast.
- The Flight Back
Durrell’s Alexandrian Quartet
helps pass the hours
his sensuous language compensates
for my incomprehension of the plot
- Conversation on the Plane
So what would you teach?
this older woman asks me
would it help our children
find their way? For a moment I wonder
have I learned anything at all? - Back in Berkeley
All that time in Kyoto I resisted
the Indian faith – it’s otherworldly focus
it’s awkward Sanskrit jargon – now I’ve started
sitting with my legs crossed, listening
to the great bell that billows and becalms
Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet
Of course it would take an Italian
to understand the importance
of casting the young lovers
as young as Will Shakespeare wrote them
Am I so moved by this English
because for some months I’ve been hearing
only Japanese?
Ichigo – Strawberries
Now that summer’s coming in
baskets of strawberries brighten up the markets
each berry individually wrapped
in cellophane – oh the Japanese
mania for putting things in wrappers!
The Pre-Meiji Fashion for Blackening Teeth
Vestiges of the old matriarchy?
The line was, it’s for beauty’s sake
but I suspect a masculine fear
of women with shinywhite teeth
Steve Berman Potery 
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