At Ashino, the willow Saigyo praised, “beside the clear stream,” still grows along a path in fields of rice. A local official had offered to lead the way, and I had often wondered whether and where it remained. And now, today, that same willow:

Rice-planting done, they

depart–before I emerge

from willow shade

Our Maple in Transition

Sometimes the journey carries me no further than the Maple beside our deck. Its canopy shelters us during the summer. But its foliage has colored, and its leaves fallen. Now, it stands with its rudimentary buds, bare-boughed, as temperatures fall.

leaf-mowing

in the morning sky

a flight of geese