Old Japan
Emerald skies
Beneath I lie
Left to sleep
In strange Japan.
White Chrysanthemums
Wait by scarlet walls
For the Sun-King’s visit.
Water leaps and runs
Through pink cherry tress
Soft with blossom.
By the lake,
By the reed ridden harbours
Of the sea,
By the wild running rivers of the mountains
People wait for people
Who never come.
In Old Japan
The blossom white
Scatters across the brown earth
Drawn by the winds of the last autumn.
In Old Japan
The markets cease to chatter,
The wise men of the hills
Mutter in strange tongues
And cry like babies.
The paper boats sway
Empty and forgotten.
Blue and gold lions
Gaze across the tired dusty courtyard
And the Palace of the Heart weeps.
©2014 Jim Carroll
(1968)
