Thoughts of Lightning | reminiscence of Kyoto
Did the dusty prow, now bone-dry, crave cresting waves from a time since forgotten?
Within the seclusion of the half-shaded sanctuary, the two far edges of the room resembled the argents of a portrait. There was an orderly cobblestone path which led across the garden and into a main hall out-of-view. Around that pathway were segments of the garden, in which low and twisted pines stopped, their entwined branches casting a furled shadow on the loose gravelstone. The sanctus itself was plain enough — humble timber benches lined the back wall, wooden grain tarnished brown-black from years of rain and stormwater. The walls were the colours of damp sand, textured with plaster grain-work. Following the grain and looking suddenly upward, my eyes caught the centrepiece — a fishing skiff upheld by crossbeams of dark wood — long and slender was its body and oars all delicately shaped, salt-crusted in every nook. With a wind slowly rising, could I taste the salt from a broiling sea-storm? Did the dusty prow, now bone-dry, crave cresting waves from a time since forgotten, bearding the drownéd idol of a Bodhisattva under flashing skies? Eyes trailing the figure of the oars, one saw them smoothened at the grips — wood patched in darkness from toil and salt. How I longed to envisage that distant shoreline; scattered stars still fragmenting the light of early morning, wavelets pushing into dense, dark sand. And there on the edge of the sky, from the margins of this world, there came such a little skiff, twin-oared, and her boatswain. I would wave and maybe, just maybe, he would wave back too.
Written in the sanctum of the Myoken-do in Jojakko-ji, Kyoto. 8 April 2023.
