Stone Bridge Cafe is a bi-weekly online series from Stone Bridge Press devoted to bringing readers short stories, poems, non-fiction pieces, photographs, and artwork from and/or about East Asia. For submission guidelines and info, follow the link at the bottom of this post.
On the menu this week is a powerful little poem written by Miriam Sagan in Itoshima, Japan that transports you into the poet's subjective perception as she observes the Japanese village and countryside unfurling outside her desk window. With just a few choice words Sagan captures the act of looking out and its paradoxical connection to looking inward: of turning the mind's eye outward to observe, to see your world in a different culture and yourself in another person.
☀☀☀
from the desk window
blue roof tiles
those dragon scales
that ripple
like the sea
and a corrugated
green tin roof
then the lettuce beds
of the old lady’s house
when she opens the screens
I can watch her
watch television
or eat a little snack,
she has quality
of loneliness
or aloneness
I recognize—
she’s the one
who is left
beyond that
dark misty mountains
on this early January day
and off to my left
the shrine with its decrepit
swing set and climbing structure
the tiny park
and the curved stone gate
making a place
apart
if you keep going
not towards the train station
but down to the rice fields
there is a larger shrine
overgrown
dark, two sets
of guardian statues
and I think
maybe I shouldn’t have
put money in the box
and pulled the rope—
there was no bell
anyway
I gather
I’ve been praying
all wrong
should know
what spirit
I’m addressing
and ask for rain
or clear weather
I’ve just been
stilling my mind
in that wordless
invocation of
keep us safe and
don’t leave us
in my backpack
across Japan
I’m carrying
the medal
of the Blessed Kateri Tekawitha
who although the Lily of the Mohawk
stands outside
the Santa Fe cathedral,
the prayer on the back
says: may we walk
in harmony
with nature
now the old lady
has opened her sliding doors
cracked for fresh air,
she looks up
for an instant
and sees me
another old lady
typing
in my green nightgown
and lavender sweater,
and I should wave
but overcome
by shyness
look down
at these words.
☀☀☀
Miriam Sagan is the author of 30 published books, including the novel Black Rainbow (Sherman Asher, 2015) and Geographic: A Memoir of Time and Space (Casa de Snapdragon). which just won the 2016 Arizona/New Mexico Book Award in Poetry. She founded and headed the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College until her retirement this year. Her blog Miriam’s Well (http://miriamswell.wordpress.com) has 1500 daily readers. She has been a writer in residence in two national parks, at Yaddo, MacDowell, Colorado Art Ranch, Andrew’s Experimental Forest, Center for Land Use Interpretation, Iceland’s Gullkistan Residency for creative people, and another dozen or so remote and unique places. Her awards include the Santa Fe Mayor’s award for Excellence in the Arts, the Poetry Gratitude Award from New Mexico Literary Arts, and a Lannan Foundation residency in Marfa.
If you would like to submit your own work to Stone Bridge Cafe, follow this link for submission info and guidelines: http://www.stonebridge.com/sbp-blog/stone-bridge-cafe-guidelines-submission-info