Sunday, January 25, 2009

The elements
















Took the shinkansen (bullet train) for the first time yesterday, at the crack of dawn, and arrived at 9 a.m. in Hamamatsu in Shizuoka. As it is further south I had expected it to be warmer, but we could see the icy winds blowing hard down from the Southern Alps, and the air was full of confetti windblown snow.

We headed straight to the museum/art gallery of the wonderful Akino Fuku.































We then hiked round the edge of the Hamanako lake (renowned for its eels), and ended up on the 11th floor roof of a hotel overlooking the lake, with the Sun setting, in an onsen. The water was really rather too hot, but the screaming wind was considerably too cold, so I had to dip in and out, my lower half pink as a lobster, my upper less so.
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Must be good for you.

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Somewhat curious, to a gaijin like myself, was the fact that a bloke entered the freezing, wind-tunnelled, rooftop, male changing room - actually it's not a changing room, it's an undressing room - with his 6-ish year old daughter; both stripped stark naked next to me as I bashfully did the same, then jumped in the bath with a load of other strange men - strange in the sense of unknown.
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I had asked my companion how we should spend the day: museums or mountains. The answer came thus: that to spend the day in natural beauty is to confront the infinite; to spend it with beauty man-made is to touch another's soul.
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An orange or a rose?


















This morning we cycled, against the same head-wind, down to Enoshima to work on the boat. Much easier coming back, whizzing past the crawling Sunday traffic. Cooped up in their surround sound comfort zones.















Stopped at a striking monument. 99 years ago a group of 12 boys set out from La Chaya beach in a boat, and later drowned off the point. A pair of brothers were eventually found, buried in the deep - the elder holding the younger in his arms. It was on the 23rd of January, according to the plaque - today is the 25th, and there's a large bunch of flowers at their feet.
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Naked Children, Akino Fuku, 1954
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Can't see nothin' in front of me
Can't see nothin' coming up behind
I make my way through this darkness
I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me
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Lost track of how far I've gone
How far I've gone, how high I've climbed
On my back's a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile of line
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Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight
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Left the house this morning
Bells ringing filled the air
Wearin' the cross of my calling
On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here
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Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight
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There's spirits above and behind me
Faces gone black, eyes burnin' bright
May their precious blood bind me
Lord, as I stand before your fiery light
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I see you Mary in the garden
In the garden of a thousand sighs
There's holy pictures of our children
Dancin' in a sky filled with light
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May I feel your arms around me
May I feel your blood mix with mine
A dream of life comes to me
Like a catfish dancin' on the end of my line
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Sky of blackness and sorrow (a dream of life)
Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)
Sky of glory and sadness (a dream of life)
Sky of mercy, sky of fear (a dream of life)
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Sky of memory and shadow (a dream of life)
Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight
Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)
Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life
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Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight
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Bruce Springsteen
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Poem
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Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
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Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
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Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
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Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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Dylan Thomas
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