At a temple and a grave



Recent sudden cold temperature must be effect on autumnal leaves.


As I looked forward to see red maple leaves from before, I decided to visit Jyojakko-ji, (常寂光寺）, a temple which is located in north west of Kyoto prefecture.



It took about twenty minutes walk from JR Arashiyama station, and then an old house, Rakushi-sha(落柿舎） where one of pupils of Basho lived in, came to be seen near the temple I addressed for.

 

 
 
In the gate of Jyojyakko-ji, many maple trees greet visitors.




The leaves stand out against autumn sky, sometimes shining sometimes shimmering with subtle change of sunlight .

 

This temple was built in 1595 as a hermitage for a priest, Nisshin(日禛） who loved tanka poet、and later the temple was rearranged partly.
The garden of the temple has slope inclination, and some steep stone steps lead us at the very peak of the garden.

From there we can make a sweep of town in Kyoto that is surrounded by layers of small mountains like Nara where I live in.

Another reason that invited me here is to visit a grave of James Kirkup (1918～2009). It is on the grave yard next to this temple.

One of my tanka friends gave me an information that says James Kirkup passed away in Andorra, and later his secretary brought a part of his remains to bury it in Japan where James loved and worked for translation of Japanese poetry.

I did not dare to take a photo of his tomb that was made of natural brown stones and his name for another world were curved in kanji ( on a pole beside the tomb his real name was written), instead I'd like to offer this maple leaves for his soul.

And let me introduce one of his translations which is found in a book, "Fumi Saito in Thickets of Memory ".

花が水がいつせいにふるえる時間なり眼（め）に見えぬものも歌ひたまへな

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　斎藤　史（１９０９～２００２）

This is the moment

when flowers and water start

trembling at once.

---- Come, start singing of those things

that cannot be seen with eyes.



Walking on an autumn afternoon

The new town where I live now used to be vast hilly area that had many up and down. The nearest station was only for students of University, and then land development was proceeded widely that ended up to make it a big bed town.

Even now, some wild weed and flowers are seen along the railroad or on some vacant small land. Some wild flowers started their puffs to be blown away.

Thus lives are handed down to the next generation.

Polygonum longisetum(イヌタデ）are also seen by the road. When I was child I called this wild flowers as " Aka- manma" that literally means red-rice which refers the rice cooked with red beans especially for celebrations.

 

 
Seeing the flowers I thought of a tanka poet who passed away in last August, at age 63, Yuko Kawano. She often sang some wild flowers like Akamanma, bindweed(ヒルガオ）and wild cosmos as her favourite.

In 1980s, some ideas of feminism came to the forefront.

In the genre of tanka poem, as well as other genres, some discussions on feminism were held sometimes loudly sometimes intriguingly.

Some wrote tanka poems from the situation of unmarried cohabitation and some did as former student movement activists.

Among them Kawano's writing was always down to the earth. Her voice was not loud but powerful so that readers heard hers of bottom of her heart and felt the importance of daily life.( You can read some of them via here)
Her voice was also definitely one of representatives of feminism.

Thinking of her I walked by an elementary school. There pupils rose their cheerful voice. I stole a glance into the world of younger generation between a fence.


 I came to a park after about twenty minutes' walking.

                                                                              
                                                                              
I found a Magnolia kobus （コブシ）, which has many white flowers in spring ,bears some red fruits.

magnolia kobus via Flickr

Between the branches a large cobweb is hanging and a tiny spider is sitting on it.

立体にウェッブ張りている蜘蛛を若き虚業家おもいて見あぐ　　haricot

Seeing a spider

on a web of three dimension

I pictured to myself

a young entrepreneur

who dreams World Wide Web

Through the foliage I saw three naked women who were supporting a fountain tower without water sprout.
I named them, " Three Graces in Autumn".(Three Graces in Primavera(Spring)