From Narrow Road to the Interior

The moon and sun are eternal travelers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat, or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. From the earliest times there have always been some who perished along the road. Still I have always been drawn by windblown clouds into dreams of a lifetime of wandering. Coming home from a year's walking tour of the coast last autumn, I swept the cobwebs from my hut on the banks of the Sumida just in time for New Year, but by the time spring mists began to rise from the fields, I longed to cross the Shirakawa Barrier into the Northern Interior. Drawn by the wanderer-spirit Dosojin, I couldn't concentrate on things. Mending my cotton pants, sewing a new strap on my bamboo hat, I daydreamed. Rubbing moxa into my legs to strengthen them, I dreamed a bright moon rising over Matsushima. So I placed my house in another's hands and moved to my patron Mr. Sampu's summer house in preparation for my journey. And I left a verse by my door:

Even this grass hut
may be transformed
into a doll's house

Very early on the twenty-seventh morning of the third moon, under a predawn haze, transparent moon barely visible, Mount Fuji just a shadow, I set out under the cherry blossoms of Ueno and Yanaka. When would I see them again? A few old friends had gathered in the night and followed along far enough to see me off from the boat. Getting off at Senju, I felt three thousand miles rushing through my heart, the whole world only a dream. I saw it through farewell tears.

Spring passes
and the birds cry out—tears
in the eyes of fishes

With these first words from my brush, I started. Those who remain behind watch the shadow of a traveler's back disappear.

The second year of Genroku, I think of the long way leading into the Northern Interior under Go stone skies. My hair may turn white as frost before I return from those fabled places—or maybe I won't return at all. By nightfall, we come to Soka, bony shoulders sore from heavy pack, grateful for a warm night robe, cotton bathing gown, writing brush, ink stone, necessities. The pack made heavier by farewell gifts from friends. I couldn't leave them behind.

Continuing on to the shrine at Muro-no-Yashima, my companion Sora said, "This deity, Ko-no-hana Sakuya Hime, is Goddess of Blossoming Trees and also has a shrine at Fuji. She locked herself inside a fire to prove her son's divinity. Thus her son was called Prince Hohodemi—Born-of-Fire—here in Muro-no-Yashima [Burning Cell]. And that's why poets here write of smoke, and why the locals despise the splotched konoshiro fish that reeks like burning flesh. Everyone here knows the story."

The last night of the third moon, an inn at the foot of Mount Nikko. The innkeeper is called Hotoke Gozaemon, "Joe Buddha." He says his honesty earned him the name and invites me to make myself at home. A merciful buddha suddenly appearing like an ordinary man to help a pilgrim along his way, his simplicity's a great gift, his sincerity unaffected. A model of Confucian rectitude, my host is a bodhisattva.

On the first day of the fourth moon, climbed to visit the shrines on a mountain once called Two Wildernesses, renamed by Kukai when he dedicated the shrine. Perhaps he saw a thousand years into the future, this shrine under sacred skies, his compassion endlessly scattered through the eight directions, falling equally, peaceably, on all four classes of people. The greater the glory, the less these words can say.

Ah—speechless before
these budding green spring leaves
in blazing sunlight