quickly completed.
It seemed too easy, Ohasu said.
It was what they wanted. Old Master Bashō had made suggestions for improvements here and there, and he reworded afew awkward phrases, but the finished poem had met the aesthetic requirements of the fee payers.
Ohasu sat so as not to block his view of the river. Didn’t you hope for more?
The Old Master held out his cup and she poured for him. Does it matter?
Just that the blossoms will be mostly gone by tomorrow…
He drank again and thrust out his cup. That too is something over which I have no influence.
The rest of their party returned subdued. There’s a baby, Osome said.
A baby?
Floating in the shallows.
Ohasu and Oyuki followed Osome back to an inlet filled with rubbish and river foam. Servants at a nearby party had already waded out to retrieve the little corpse. It lay on the grassy bank, its umbilical cord still attached and the dead grey flesh spangled with cherry petals.
Osome clutched the front of her robe closed. It was a girl.
Yes.
Someone went to inform the abbot of a nearby Pure Land temple, and the others who were there soon began drifting off. Osome and Oyuki returned to the merchants’ party, but Ohasu remained, kneeling beside the tiny body, the two of them wound within the blowing swirls of falling cherry blossoms as the evening wind continued to strip the trees.
The Old Master came up behind her, his carry sack hooked over one shoulder. You couldn’t leave her here alone.
No.
She wouldn’t know.
I’d know.
Bashō told her he had waited all year for this day, determined to say what he truly felt about it. But all that had occurredto him were things remembered, phrases borrowed, images salvaged from previous failures. So his page remained blank. Perhaps it was better that way.
You don’t mean that, Ohasu said.
You’re telling me what I mean?
Ohasu gazed up at him then lowered her eyes. No, she said meekly.
If you love something in the way you describe it, then all you love is words.
Ohasu placed one hand on the baby’s chest. How would you describe her?
Bashō stood for a moment longer then began trudging up towards the embankment road, and Ohasu called after him. They said you might need a housekeeper…
Who said it?
Ohasu looked down at her hands, embarrassed by her boldness .
I need no such thing.
I would do what I was told. Then just sit in a corner and learn from what you taught others.
About what?
The art of poetry. So I can write truly about my life.
Who would read it?
My mother.
Then what you want to write is a letter, not a poem.
She’s dead.
He looked back at her. And that’s what you think poetry is?
Because I had no chance to say I forgave her…
Old Master Bashō regarded her silently then said, We all need forgiveness. But he also asked if she understood the requirements of the seasons, and Ohasu said she thought she knew most of them.
Only briefly above the cherry trees:
tonight’s moon.
T HERE WAS DANCING THAT NIGHT , but it was the merchants who danced. They threw themselves about wildly, hopping and pivoting and waving their sleeves, executing clever steps and complicated figures, not all of which came off as intended.
Oyuki played the same tunes again and again, always willing to do whatever was asked of her, and Ohasu and Osome tapped on small hand drums and cried Hoi ! Hoi ! to encourage the merchants in their mad capering.
T HE P ALACE O RPHAN
M ugen Bonze carried a walking staff with a cluster of metal rings fitted at the top as a jingle warning for insects, and he halted when he reached the rogue samurai squatting alone by the roadside. Mugen’s pair of piebald goats stopped too.
Autumn’s the season for mountain rambling, said Mugen Bonze. High skies.
Hasegawa Torakage looked up at him then returned to tending his small comfort-fire.
Lean as a wind-dried mackerel, his robe patched and faded, the rogue samurai could have been mistaken for a common vagabond were it not for
It seemed too easy, Ohasu said.
It was what they wanted. Old Master Bashō had made suggestions for improvements here and there, and he reworded afew awkward phrases, but the finished poem had met the aesthetic requirements of the fee payers.
Ohasu sat so as not to block his view of the river. Didn’t you hope for more?
The Old Master held out his cup and she poured for him. Does it matter?
Just that the blossoms will be mostly gone by tomorrow…
He drank again and thrust out his cup. That too is something over which I have no influence.
The rest of their party returned subdued. There’s a baby, Osome said.
A baby?
Floating in the shallows.
Ohasu and Oyuki followed Osome back to an inlet filled with rubbish and river foam. Servants at a nearby party had already waded out to retrieve the little corpse. It lay on the grassy bank, its umbilical cord still attached and the dead grey flesh spangled with cherry petals.
Osome clutched the front of her robe closed. It was a girl.
Yes.
Someone went to inform the abbot of a nearby Pure Land temple, and the others who were there soon began drifting off. Osome and Oyuki returned to the merchants’ party, but Ohasu remained, kneeling beside the tiny body, the two of them wound within the blowing swirls of falling cherry blossoms as the evening wind continued to strip the trees.
The Old Master came up behind her, his carry sack hooked over one shoulder. You couldn’t leave her here alone.
No.
She wouldn’t know.
I’d know.
Bashō told her he had waited all year for this day, determined to say what he truly felt about it. But all that had occurredto him were things remembered, phrases borrowed, images salvaged from previous failures. So his page remained blank. Perhaps it was better that way.
You don’t mean that, Ohasu said.
You’re telling me what I mean?
Ohasu gazed up at him then lowered her eyes. No, she said meekly.
If you love something in the way you describe it, then all you love is words.
Ohasu placed one hand on the baby’s chest. How would you describe her?
Bashō stood for a moment longer then began trudging up towards the embankment road, and Ohasu called after him. They said you might need a housekeeper…
Who said it?
Ohasu looked down at her hands, embarrassed by her boldness .
I need no such thing.
I would do what I was told. Then just sit in a corner and learn from what you taught others.
About what?
The art of poetry. So I can write truly about my life.
Who would read it?
My mother.
Then what you want to write is a letter, not a poem.
She’s dead.
He looked back at her. And that’s what you think poetry is?
Because I had no chance to say I forgave her…
Old Master Bashō regarded her silently then said, We all need forgiveness. But he also asked if she understood the requirements of the seasons, and Ohasu said she thought she knew most of them.
Only briefly above the cherry trees:
tonight’s moon.
T HERE WAS DANCING THAT NIGHT , but it was the merchants who danced. They threw themselves about wildly, hopping and pivoting and waving their sleeves, executing clever steps and complicated figures, not all of which came off as intended.
Oyuki played the same tunes again and again, always willing to do whatever was asked of her, and Ohasu and Osome tapped on small hand drums and cried Hoi ! Hoi ! to encourage the merchants in their mad capering.
T HE P ALACE O RPHAN
M ugen Bonze carried a walking staff with a cluster of metal rings fitted at the top as a jingle warning for insects, and he halted when he reached the rogue samurai squatting alone by the roadside. Mugen’s pair of piebald goats stopped too.
Autumn’s the season for mountain rambling, said Mugen Bonze. High skies.
Hasegawa Torakage looked up at him then returned to tending his small comfort-fire.
Lean as a wind-dried mackerel, his robe patched and faded, the rogue samurai could have been mistaken for a common vagabond were it not for
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