Kusamakura

setting the dewdrops trembling

on the aronia.

someone has added

The crow at dawn

setting the dewdrops trembling

on the aronia.

Because it is written in pencil, I can gain no clear sense of the writing style, but it looks too firm for a womana€™s hand and too soft for a mana€™s. Herea€™s another surprise!

Looking at the next poem,

Shadow of blossoms

shadowed form of a woman

hazy on the ground.

I see that the person has added below it

Shadow of blossoms

shadowed form of a woman

doubled and overlaid.

Beneath

Inaria€™s fox god

has changed to a womana€™s shape

under the hazed moon.

is written

Young Yoshitsune

has changed to a womana€™s shape

under the hazed moon.2

I tilt my head in puzzlement as I read, at a loss to know whether the additions are intended as imitations, corrections, elegant poetic exchanges, foolishness, or mockery.

a€?Later,a€ she said, so perhaps she is about to appear with my breakfast. Once shea€™s here, Ia€™l probably be able to make a little more sense of things. Happening to glance at my watch, I see ita€™s past eleven. How wel I slept! Given the lateness of the hour, Ia€™d be better off making do with only lunch.

I slide the right-hand screen door open onto the balcony and look out, in search of echoes of last nighta€™s scene. The tree that I judged to be an aronia is indeed so, but the garden is smal er than I thought. Five or six stepping-stones are buried in a carpet of green moss; it would feel very nice to walk there barefoot. To the left is a cliff face, part of the mountain beyond, with a red pine slanting out over the garden from between rocks.

Behind the aronia is a smal clump of bushes, and beyond a stand of tal bamboo, its ninety feet of green drenched in sunlight. The scene to the right is cut off by the roofline of the building, but judging from the lay of the land, it must slope gently down toward the bathhouse.

Casting my eyes farther, I see that the mountain slopes down to a hil , which in turn sinks to an area of flat land about four hundred yards wide.

This in turn dives below sea level, to emerge abruptly from the water about forty miles out, in the form of Mayajima, a smal island that I guess to be less than fifteen miles in circumference. Such is the geography of the Nakoi area. The hot spring inn is tucked in against the mountainside, its garden half-embracing the cliff face. The building is a two-storied one, but here at the back, owing to the slope, it becomes a single floor. If I dangled my feet from this balcony, my heels would brush the moss. It makes perfect sense that the previous evening I thought the place to be strangely devised, as I clambered in perplexity up and down its steep staircases.

Now I open the window to the left. Before me is a wide rock, natural y hol owed out in the middle; the reflection of a wild cherry tree lies steeping in the stil pool of water accumulated there from the recent spring rain. Two or three clumps of dwarf bamboo are elegantly positioned to soften the angle of the rock. Beyond stands a hedge of what looks like red-berried kuko bushes; the sound of occasional passing voices suggests that directly beyond the hedge lies the steep road that climbs from the beach to the hil . The gentle southward slope on the farther side of the road is planted with a grove of mandarin trees, and at the edge of the val ey another large stand of bamboo shines white in the sun. I have never realized til now that bamboo leaves give off a silver light when seen from a distance. A pine-clad mountainside rises above the bamboo grove, with five or six stone steps leading up between the pinesa€™ red trunks, so clearly visible I feel I can reach out and touch them. There must be a temple there.

I next open the sliding door that leads off the corridor to my room and go out onto the porch beyond. The railing runs around four sides of an inner garden, and across it, in the direction from which I guess the sea would be visible, stands a second-floor room. From the railing, I can see that my own room is level with this second floora€”a tasteful arrangement. Given that the bathing area is below ground level, I could be said to be ensconced in a room at the top of a three-tiered tower.

The building is a large one, but aside from the room opposite, and another that is level with my railing around to the right, almost every space that looks likely to be a guest room (I know nothing of the living area or kitchen) is closed up. There must be virtual y no guests here apart from myself.

The outer wooden shutters remain closed over the sealed rooms even during the day, but once opened, it seems they arena€™t closed again even at night. Perhaps the front door is not locked at night either. Ita €™s an ideal place for me to happen upon in my journey to savor artistic a€?nonemotion.a€?