On the Bus to Koyasan
Haiku Memories by Eva Castle
My first days in Japan were a blend of the usual eating, sleeping, organising bags and possessions, finding accommodation at the airport, and adjusting to the unseasonal hot and muggy weather. I was calm — perhaps because I had been on a similar trip a year ago. Missing was a sense of disquiet about what to expect. I had a sense of ease and anticipation of the days ahead.
What did I notice on the bus to Koyasan as I practiced being in the present?
In a notebook I sketched a palm, alternating pattern of lights in a dark tunnel and interlocking blocks of concrete. I know I was thinking about something Jan said to do with boundaries. I sketched a peak for a mountain and a level line representing the land. It is shorthand for the reality of Japan’s geography. I have written ‘Flat land — people in close proximity and behaviours and interactions are created for harmony.’ I wonder if the mountains are a boundary.
I saw and sketched a large bamboo stalk weighted down by a rampant vine. I remember thinking ‘it looks like sushi — fish over rice’ pleased with myself for this analogy. The sketch I drew of interlocking concrete blocks reminds me I saw several types in different sizes. Some held up cut away hillsides. Gazing out the bus window my attention was captured by the close together planting of fruiting persimmon trees in orchard after orchard — an ordered arrangement leaving room between trees for cultivation and harvesting. The height of trees was contained to keep fruit within reach. Trees were pruned to the same shape and size and planted the same distance from each other. The concrete blocks needed no room to grow — without space between them, forming a strong buttress.
I wrote, like some English adventurer: ‘[The land] being so mountainous and uninhabitable the Japanese people revere mountains which have power greater than humans.” I thought about the way humans transform the power of nature into ‘something else’, like parking a difficult idea on a small corner of a whiteboard in a workshop. I saw a large collective of cobwebs around a juncture of electricity wires on a pole and I wrote ‘it is like a village’ — indulging my white board mentality. Next I wrote ‘to climb a mountain in a bus we have to wind around it, or pass through a tunnel in darkness’ giving credence to the power of nature to affect human travel.
On this trip we will walk a well-known pilgrim path. On the bus to Koyasan I practice noticing and being in the present.
corrugated iron
strapped to a metal frame
covers a pump from the weather
grey heron
many tomato signs
bamboo merchant
small red shrine with bell
rice growing or cut?
house at an intersection
only the roof visible
in a gully by the river
not yet swept away
Koya Café
orange persimmons
three wavy vertical lines in a circle
equals coffee
wooden platform
built over a gorge for the view
bus drives on
pine forest trees
a rough fence
between me and the distance
first BIG red gate
passes quickly
we drive on
to wherever we are going
Koyasan
Awesome town
Eva Castle is an author, researcher and curator from the Ilawarra region who enjoys exploring the haiku form. She was a participant in Haiku Walking — The Nakasendo Way in 2018 as well as our Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage in Nov 2019. (Read her 2018 piece here). Before our Kumano Kodo walk some of us visited Koyasan.
Photos except where indicated, by Eva Castle.
This magazine showcases the work of participants in Haiku Walking In Japan 2016 -2019. Read their contributions on other pages of Summer Grass here.
To find out more about Haiku Walking in Japan join our mailing list here.
Our next Haiku Walking journey will be in Kyushu Nov 21- 26, 2020. Read more here.
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