around the end of March

On the way from the nearest station to the next one, a Japanese style restaurant with a commodious entrance and garden is observed.

The backyard extends facing a road, and at its corner which looks a wild bush there are some trees of Kobus Magnolia, Kobushi(辛夷).

When there is no flowers this corner is monotone and I do not pay attention, but in March it's different.

As relatively tiny trees of Kobus Magnolia are suitable for garden plants, I can see some of them here and there and enjoy those blooming; besides I seldom see such tall and wild ones.

Being fascinated by the feature I sneaked onto the corner of the backyard from the facing road.

Every year in March I notice the buds of Kobus Magnolia and Lily Magnolia, Mokuren(木蓮) when they begin to swell on the branches which had looked almost bare until not long ago. 

And when they become bigger I always imagine some birds looking up at the sky

all at once with large beaks.

And then they start to open up one by one...

Finally each flower becomes an illuminant.

I stood still for a while, beneath the tall tree with hundred of natural lamps, bathing the emission

 of whitish lights. 

The other day I happened to see some deer trotting in a row alongside a pond in Nara Park.

It made me think as if March proceeding at a gallop.

In fact the most common sort of cherry blossoms began to come out much earlier than usual 

this year. 

By the pond, another Kobus Magnoria was in full bloom.

春あさきそらの通りに枝枝に兆すちからを見留（と）めてぞゆく阿木津　英（１９５０～

Walking　on an airy passage

in the early spring

I recognize the energy

coming to the fore

on this branch and on that one

by Ei  Akitsu

The ideal beauties

More than three decades have passed since I visited Kinkakuji (金閣寺) last time.

This temple left a vivid image on my mind in a positive and negative way; I mean

that it was beautiful enough, bright and elegant, for please my eye, and at the same time it looked too shinny and flamboyant. 

So, I wanted to see it again on a snowy day, in dim light.

However, it was a fine day when my husband invited me to go out, to go to Kyoto for example,

and I said to him, "How about to visit Kinkakuji?, despite myself.

Kinkakuji was there as it used to be, as if it will never be weathered.

It was more than fifteen years ago that I reread the novel, "Kinkakuji",「金閣寺」,

by Yukio Mishima.(三島由紀夫)

In the novel a young monk struggling with his ideal image of Kinkakuji  

feels pressure from becoming a priest as well as from the existence of the temple.

Trying hard to overcome his own complex and to give his life for the temple, he failed

about them and ended up to determine arson on the temple for being free from his 

ideal beauty.

This novel is based on the fact that Kinkakuji was set fire to by a student in 1950.

Five years later it was rebuilt and restored the structure that was arranged under

Shogunate Ashikaga in 14c.

Recently I read a tanka book including following one.

The contemporary tanka poet, Meiko Matsudaira, divorced and moved to France.

Then she released energetically some of her tanka poems that described her new life with her lover.

In the book we are also able to find some tanka poems regarding to her son and daughter whom Meiko had to leave.

They turn up in her dream repeatedly.

In her dream the stained glass window called rosette falls down more than once as well.

How the collapse of the symbol of the beauty and virtue works in the depth of her mind,
I wonder.

仰ぐとき薔薇窓の薔薇いっせいに崩落したりいくたびの夢　松平　盟子(1954~)

Looking up at the Cathedrale

and when I see the petals of glass

The rose of the rosette

starts to scatter over me,

I'm watching it again in my dream

Meiko Matsudaira

Rosette de Notre Dame from Website

early and tiny bloom of cherry blossoms was seen near Kinkakuji