Poetry Blog No 133 Narrow Roads to Inner Lands Scene Two

NARROW ROADS TO INNER LANDS- SCENE TWO

In the second scene Bashō and Sora set out upon there journey leaving Edo (now Toyko) at a time of significance still in Japan- the time of cherry blossoms.

"Hanami" is the centuries-old practice of picnicking under a blooming sakura or ume tree. The custom is said to have started during the Nara Period (710–794) when it was ume blossoms that people admired in the beginning. But by the Heian Period (794–1185), cherry blossoms came to attract more attention and hanami was synonymous with sakura. From then on, in both waka and haiku, "flowers" (hana) meant "cherry blossoms". The custom was originally limited to the elite of the Imperial Court, but soon spread to samurai society and, by the Edo period, to the common people as well. Tokugawa Yoshimune planted areas of cherry blossom trees to encourage this. Under the sakura trees, people had lunch and drank sake in cheerful feasts. From Wikipedia

Mount Fuji and Cherry Blossoms Tokyo (by Hilly Areas of the World)

SCENE TWO

Soft dawn music. A dawn light. Noises and then voices offstage.

VOICE ONE

Farewell, good Bashō.

VOICE TWO

                                           May fortune guide you both.

VOICE THREE

May you return, old friends,

VOICE FOUR

                                                       before next spring.

(Enter Bashō and Sora with packs on their backs and carrying stout walking sticks.)

BASHŌ

It’s strange how all beginnings are like endings,

And how all endings are new-starting ways.

The dawn’s new rays bring birth of living day

But fold up healing night’s deep, restful darkness-

Bright flowers fade to fruit, the fruit to seed,

So all is starting with an ending; so

It seems, indeed, with starting journeys too-

The first, new steps are taken with farewells.

SORA

We’re starting early. Mistiness still lingers:

A hazy darkness dimming morning’s light.

Look, eastwards lies a dying sickle moon:

A white ship on the sea of dawn. On far

The summit of Mount Fuji seems, in this

First sight of day, still like a shadow shape.

BASHŌ

And all spring-flowering crowns of cherry trees

Seem bidding us farewell; farewell to Edo.

Oh, shining blossoms, when shall I see you

Once more? Thoughts linger, making heavy steps.

This passing world’s in sense illusion, yet

Fair images of friends and of the town

Have nearly filled my eyes with foolish tears.

And thus we leave and leave but words behind.

(Bashō pauses, then speaks.)

O, spring departing:

The birds cry and the fishes’

Round eyes are weeping.

With these departing words to mark this moment,

Let’s be upon our way. I’ll not be bound

To some one place, however pleasing, or

A foolish ease of situation, for

As has been said in other, ancient times,

A man attempting not to learn grows old

Just like an ox. His body ages, but

His wisdom does not grow with gathered years.

SORA

Now we have quite a walk before us here -

More than a season’s walk. I think this spring

And coming summer will have passed before

We’ve traced the narrow road up to the north.

BASHŌ

So let us be upon our way and leave

Old lives back here with starting steps. And yet,

As I once wrote and still feel so in part -

My mind made up to fall

A weather-whitened skeleton,

I cannot help the wild, sore wind

Whirling through my heart.

( Music of wind. Bashō and Sora exit. Lights fade.)