Fireworks at Ryogoku

Ryogoku hanabi (8/1858)
More than flowers or mayflies, fireworks touch

the sadness at the heart of things

mono no aware, the lit-up dying Now.
The now of all those cracker nights:

throwing penny bungers, dodging jumping jacks

breathing the pent-up fury of catherine wheels

as flower pots blossomed, loosing their cordite scent

and golden rain fountained into the dark

with the whoosh of rockets and sputter of sparklers

turning the children to little cosmic gods:

‘Let there be light!’
Let the moment flare and bloom and seed the future

with blue and green and gold, scarlet and dazzling white.

Here on the bridge and in the boats below – the same

tense crowd’s held breath, the gasp and unison of

‘Ah!’ with the shower of fire flowers, jewels of air.

In this caught moment a rocket loops from its apogee

down through a dozen starbursts, supernovas spiked as caltrops

sharing their fierce birth like a longed-for sign.  
Under the far end of the bridge where a narrow boat

nudges a pylon, a couple are leaning together

in their little room of shadows, unseeing and unseen.


Suido Bridge and Suruga Hill

Suidobashi Surugadai (5/1857)
It’s the First Day of the White Horse

Tango-no sekku, the Festival of Boys.

Hoist high on poles, gigantic paper carp –

gogatsu-nobori – stream in the breeze

in the sweet depth death of sky.
Bring out the warrior dolls and banners

call on Shoki, tamer of demons.

Here – so close you reach to touch

the scales like winged achenes –

this nearest carp is swimming the wind

in a terrible ecstasy, a fishgod

leapt from his element – the horror

of that round eye’s flat stare

holding an ocean in its span!

Imagine having no eyelid

no way to summon the dark –

the pupil as open portal

endlessly flooding the mind with world. 
Mesmerising, this print:

Fuji’s open cervix birthing blue

last snowdrifts down the ancient lava paths

and Fish with his god’s eye view

of the tiny human race rejoicing below.

O fish of success, shusse-no uo

may you become a dragon!


The Fukagawa Lumberyards

Fukagawa kiba (8/1856)
Left and right the snow-covered spars

                                                                  jut out beside the canal

sculpting a diamond space

                                           with lattices of logs floating on blue

The falling snow is offering

                                                     manna from other dimensions

There are such moments in music

                                         dissonant   starry   crystalline

a piece by Bartok

                            growing into the silence long

                                                                      after its lease of us

Step out of time

                                                              lift beyond loss

into the zero sound of air

                                               this fine seething through

the flake-flecked deepening sky

                                                  Below   two skinny  thin-clad men

steer their rafts to shore

                                      two birds home in

two tubby dogs   yellow   grey

                                              circle each other gingerly

                                                                    on the downy white

                         and a gold bamboo umbrella

pale as yesterday’s sun

                                   fronts the bell-toll view

                                                              that ghostly rim of sound


Notes:

Part 1 in response to Fireworks at Ryogoku: Ryogoku hanabi, woodblock print by Utagawa

Hiroshige, also known as Andō Hiroshige, from the print series ‘One Hundred Famous Views of Edo’

(Meisho Yedo Hiakkei, 1856-58) number 98. Part 2 in response to Suido Bridge and Suruga Hill:

Suidobashi Surugadai, woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige, also known as Andō Hiroshige,

from the print series ‘One Hundred Famous Views of Edo’ (Meisho Yedo Hiakkei, 1856-58), number 63.

Part 3 in response to The Fukagawa Timberyards: Fukagawa kiba, woodblock print by Utagawa

Hiroshige, also known as Andō Hiroshige, from the print series ‘One Hundred Famous Views of Edo’

(Meisho Yedo Hiakkei, 1856-58) number 106.