The Junk Store of Dreams, and A Road Not Taken
- The Junk Store of Dreams, and A Road Not Taken
The Junk Store of Dreams
looked open, for once. How many timeshad a dream arrived at this corner,to find it shut? The door protestedbut gave on a mismatched parlorof furniture the dead had left behind,then the living found wanting.
Chairs staggered up a wall.Did one stretch a leg to kick a dust mote—and hit a chandelier? Each price tag wore,like pearls, a string of zeros.What coinage did I need?In the way of dreams, I had lost my purse.
A dust cover rustled. It wheezed to life,unstuffing a sofa: the well-padded owner.Someone else had come in:my mother, here in this countryneither of us had ever visited.How young she looked, younger than I—
but then she was dead. The person with her?No one I knew, no one she introduced:a stranger who kept herself busy, touching nothing,feet barely skimming the floor.An angel in street clothes? Still, I asked,would they join me for a meal?
She answered with the only wordthe dead use, a “no” so glassy,I tasted it, moonful, when I woke. [End Page 8]
A Road Not Taken
after Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido
(Hoeido Edition), by Hiroshige
Station 1. Early Morning, Nihonbashi Bridge
Out of the way, poet!Out of darkness, dawn rushed across the bridge.First came porters bowed under the weight
of a day whose bundles demanded delivery.Did the street dogs attend?They had found something else to worry.
And the sketcher with the face of a dumpling?He was a different matter.
Station 3. Ferry at Rokugo Crossing
The mountain might be wrapped in red blankets,but already a ferry pushed the last blue hourfrom one bank to the other—yet not fast enough
for the travelers on the far shore.Their poet of a packhorse, though,gave his head another thought-clearing shake.
Station 9. Rain at Oiso
The rain said, I am busy.I have more lines to draw,all the way down to the ground.
In a rice paddy, beehives huddled,their straw coats wrapping the hum.Water fell, it fell on itself. [End Page 9]
Raincoats rushed and swished down the pathbut under the tent of his tarp,a packhorse took his slow, slick time.
Each hoof wrenched from the mudleft a wine cup that more rain filled.Drink up, sparrows!
Station 13. Dusk at Numazu
The last bare scrap of paper hidbehind a tree: a moon watched a skyink in a river, cloudy and dark.
Trees let their green go black.Foot-travelers turned back into paper,the last a boy dragging his feet,
his bedroll longing to lie down.
Station 14. Fuji by Morning, Hara
Who was out on the road so early?Two women. The coolie who carried their goods.First light had set the mountain aglow—
so what on earth was there to discussbut the shade its snow blushed?Deep in a rice field, back for the season,
two cranes waded, up to their ankles in silt.Mated, they pecked at the muddy heartof the word home until they’d pierced it through.
Station 16. Evening Snow, Kambara
Which fell first, night or snow?Heavily they weighed on the sleeping villageto keep it from sliding farther downhill. [End Page 10]
Carrying snow on their backs,the last walkers leaned away—leaned into the dark.With each step they sank deeper,
deeper into snow-paper.In the vast snow-silence,one flake crashed into another,
begging its pardon.Candle lantern, sake bottle,keep moving!
Station 22. Utsunoya Pass, Outside Okabe
Summer, yet the peak kept one side turnedto the cold, patching it with snow.Into the valley, a sash of snow-melt slid.
Deep into the forest, wood-gatherers went.They turned themselves into trees.They went deeper. And when they came out,
they had turned themselves into animals,hauling the woods home on their backsbranch by branch.
