Otero Junior College Chinook

Japanku
(Words in bold italics are haiku, three line poems, each to be read as a unit)

O’Hare west coast Alaska Bering Straight Siberia! Narita Tokyo Cus– toms Luggage Currency Exchange TrainTrainTrain “Aizuya Half the night Inn May I help you?” konichiwa Noodles and fish along hollow Asakusa streets Awake at three Aaron’s grant false yell of the crows proposal computer Walk before dawn till dawn after dawn seven bowls Egg soy tempura rice miso... Dawn: shrine monk Chopsticks old men in slippers along the sweeps leaves from the gravel lot street green tea powder prayer tiles clack in the wind daybreak Ta– tami mat No sleep yet Shinto shrine foxes Inari 100 yen 1000 yen slight bow hai my Japanese half understood mugicha bullet train gold rice fields Guarding rail lines… town city town station kudasai stations bales of gold drying rice– travel in Aizu–Wakamatsu walk– ing silent samurai …. streets near mountains domo arigato streets high school age kids mountains School kids in uniforms sencha Aizu morning rain– Temples without searching shrines Shinto business women carry umbrellas University of Aizu Aaron’s on bicycles . . keynote I his companion his father Marco Polo’s sidekick Evidence of my life/ in your work–the poet’s word “shard”/ your mother’s smile White Crane Castle hot public bath business card ceremony bullet Three hundred miles/ per hour train carries us past . . . no bread Issa no napkins soup river crane awaits nightfall moon view– ing the Sumida river vending machines every corner hot coffee soda orange juice At the tomb/ of the Sixteenth century samurai/the red leaves fall Boss coffee The boss of them all since 1992 shrine Ki– kaku poem-stone Zen monk keeper three hundred Clinging to the strap/ I envy the Geisha–hands free, serene–/on the rocking train generations ashes in paper bags kami honor family dead walks swept every morning circular iron bridge over train yard Asakusa bikes woman empties cement truck drives it waves Ueno–words that Basho Inns switching to winter futons iyo spoke here, too river walk the bridge traffic cop helps Birds over Ginza/ are not pigeons, nor do they sing…/ crows woman with baby in bike basket helps Shinjuku Pachinko parlor racket sushi skosh Hard as I look/ no mouse lapping up/ Sumida waters
Tokyo Narita Siberia Bering Straight Alaska west coast O’Hare
—Tim Walsh
Emeritus Faculty