I Wanted to be Surprised
after Jane Hirshfield
“To such a request,
the world is obliging.”
But what if you’re
not open enough
to the surprise,
or all you seem to experience
are surprises of
the negative kind?
An in-your-face physical
‘NO’—
crossed arms,
creating distance
between you &
the Japanese.
The
ubiquitousness of the white-shirted,
black-suited salaryman,
surprisingly
spotted at a hanami
party, or falling asleep
on his Pokémon Go
before his
10:00 p.m. whiskey
arrives at The Good Man Jazz Bar.
What was pleasantly
surprising:
The paintings in
metal under my then-brand
new Muji canvas
shoes, depicting
each city proudly
on each manhole cover. See,
beauty exists, if
only we’re
willing
to look.
The kindness of
random folks on the street
who were not
up-in-their own
heads and chose
to engage with my
Google Translate
Japanese with their
own broken
English.
The surprising joy
of keeping
(a tiny) house,
even if not
my own, trying
out recipes
that hadn’t been
touched for years.
The woodland
paths that opened a new
world beyond the torii
and temple
that was advertised
on the map.
What should not have
been surprising:
The sadness &
regret of not
exploring those
paths deeper, to the secret lakes
that existed
higher up,
The symmetry of those paths & secret
lakes—as yet unexplored—in these white
mountains we now call home. Hum
honge kamyaab ek din.
Me succumbing
under the damp, dark cloud.
All the words
that flowed thanks
to the sensory
overload—the woods,
the temples, the
cafes, the sea,
not to mention Surakoen
next door;
all the effing
paper signs that hurt
my eyes &
brain in the train,
the cornershops, in
the goddamn streets.
The second-hand
book stalls where I couldn’t
find a thing to
read in English,
All the Japanese-in-English book
piracy
that then ensued—learning about Kokoro
&
Mishima & of course Masks by Fumiko Enchi.
And
so much Basho & Issa. Haiku zindabad.
The fact I didn’t
go see live kabuki,
went to see noh
on my own—
What a fabulous
day that was: walking
with my camera, to
the public library, the theatre
in the front row,
coming out to a
brewing storm,
the sky
the colour of van
Gogh’s blue—
rainy, grainy shots
of Kobe’s hilly city lights
the
red Kobe Tower & Harborland,
the rush to buy hot
naan from the Nepalis & share
dinner with you
of the most delicious rajma
I’ve ever made.
Were they delicious
because they’d
been stewing
in their own juices
all day, marinading,
flavours fusing,
or because I’d filled
my day out of the
quiet house and
got home cold
& wet & hungry?
Does it matter?
I should not have
been surprised
by my own
withdrawal.
What did surprise
me was the concern
& efforts of
friends to stay in touch.
What no longer
surprises me is
that I am loving and
loved,
first and
foremost, by myself.
This gives the reader a glimpse into your life in Japan. When you write you get into it in full gusto!
ReplyDeleteI am wondering though if you want to work on revising this draft for greater economy. Some of the verses if arranged in prose lines will read like documentary prose. For e.g:
"The kindness of random folks on the street who were not up-in-their own heads and chose to engage with my Google Translate Japanese with their own broken English".
How would one re-write this to make it poetic? One thing is to make the syntactic arrangement such that it demands line breaks at certain points. For instance (and this is just for the sake of an example):
indulging my google-voiced Japanese
some broke out their hesitant English
See if this helps!
hi anannya,
Deletethanks so much for your suggestion. this was very much a free-write written late last night; not much editing, let alone revision, has been done. there are some images here that'd i'd like to work with further, which was the main reason for sharing - and to tick the box for day 2, i suppose. will keep in mind what you said about line breaks as i work on it. thank you for reading!