in two gardens

I attended a tanka poem monthly meeting which was held in a city hall next to this garden,located in Hyogo prefecture, on Feb. 15.

In this garden 190 trees of Ume( Japanese apricots) of 39species, are planted.

 
When a big earthquake attacked Hyogo in 1995. 1. 17. the city hall was half collapsed and had to be rebuilt. In that occasion the garden was redesigned as well and the trees were transplanted from backyard to the front of the hall.

This season it is late in blooming because of lingering coldness.

In fact the cold pierced me to the bone on that day.

one month ago, on a rainy day in a vicinity of my house

Despite of it I could find a few trees that already had some flowers.

ポップコーンがはじけるやうに白梅の花すこし増ゆ今日も曇り日　石川不二子

Like popcorn splitting open

White Ume blossoms

have increased little by little,

on continuous cloudy days  

Fujiko Ishikawa(1933～）

I had written some tanka whimsically until I read the ones by Fujiko, which made me decide to write tanka regularly and attend some study groups. I was 38 years old at that time----more than 20 yeas ago.

Her tanka were never loud but sounded so attractive for me that I felt faint fragrance of
natural aroma that was even sensual for me.

When I feel difficulties about going on writing tanka, I open her book for reviewing my starting point.



Feb. 19th, another garden, this one close to my house, was opened to the public for the viewing of Ume blossoms.

There were fewer flowers here in the garden in Nara than in there in Hyogo, because of the lower temperature.

Almost all the buds were tightly closed.

However, I found a few blossoms among swelling of buds fortunately and it made me very happy.

This path leads to a small museum called Yamato Bunka-kan,

and from the back yard visitors can see a pond which was made as a dam, more than 1,000 yeas ago.

唇(くち)閉ぢて「むめ」と呼ばへばまだ固き梅のつぼみのはにかむごとし 栗木京子

The tightly closed bud of Ume

seems to get shy

When I pucker my lips

and call it
by its ancient name of "Mume"

   Kyoko Kuriki (1954～）

While I gazed on the pond, I imagined the old days when people called plum (Japanese apricot)blossom "Mume" instead of "Ume" as they do now, something I had not known until I read Kuriki's tanka.

After one month later. Through a window of the city hall.

an exhibition

An invitation card for an exhibition arrived one morning, when it was snowing on and off.




It was from my brother, five years younger than I, who was art teacher and retired earlier, and started to enjoy to make some works of etching.



It is the second time for him to put on a solo exhibition of his etching works in a small gallery.

And the theme seemed almost the same as the former works as far as I could tell from the picture on the card.

The works, a little abstract, looked like some exotic or new towns for me.

Or maybe they are some towns in future.

At the first exhibition I asked him which work he had a particular fondness for,

and he said to me that he enjoyed some unexpected effects which were created by some condition of corrosion of copper plates, pointing out some small parts.

Early last autumn I came to know that he was diagnosed with a fatal disease.


After that he had to be hospitalised for a week once a month and it seemed  he worked on his etching when he could while at home.

Maybe he enjoyed this exhibition as much as his first one, considering his diagnosis. I only guessed so, because we did not talk much this time.

Seeing his works I noticed his buildings did not have any escape stairways.

Some time ago, I wrote the following tanka while looking at an escape stairway in a town.

新しきビルと思えど見慣れたる非常階段を脇につけたり

A newly-erected　building,

at least it looks so,

quite familiar-looking it is

on an escape stairway itself 

for my eyes



Without knowing the reason I felt at ease to see his buildings which had no escape stairways but keyboard-like lines in some works.
In addition to it I felt some music seeing his works.


After I came back home I listened to an old CD.
The melancholic voice of Georges Moustaki made me feel fragile, and I cried a little.

It was drizzly day today.

In spite of it,a bird, white eye, which visited my garden did its bathing in

a watering plate. He must want to clean his plumage before returning to a nest.

I saw some Winter sweets( Chimonanthus praecox, 蝋梅）blooming

at back-fence of my neighbour.They are blooming like small yellow lights in dim weather.

In this early evening such tiny matters and faint hint of spring in the air solaced me a lot.