A Christian Pilgrimage in Japan
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| St. Nicholas of Japan (AD 1836 - 1912) |
The Beginning of My Pilgrimage
An old bent man
Rang the cathedral bell
He limped pass the cherry blossoms
And the copper domes
He came to the gate
Only to be recognized
By an overly-enthusiastic American
Who frightened him out of his Jesus Prayer
Dressed in simple black
His mustache hanging down
He blessed the surprising children
With "Spasigospodi" and a twinkling sound in his voice
He spoke a few words
And turned around
And walked back into the twilight
Limping painfully
Without a sound
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| Metropolitan Daniel of Tokyo |
On the banks of the Kyoto River
I sit on a fossilized log
Jutting out into the water, like a sliver
As the mountains settle in fog
A patchwork of cherry and maple
Of red buds and shy faces flush
The pines stand with arms wide-open
Embracing the sprouting brush
And the jade waters whisper a chant in the distance
Two tone taking turns in each instance
I watch the mountains unfold
Like the Matcha Mochi old women plop from their mold
Like paper my mind wraps around the river bank
Around the bend that opens into Kyoto-fu's golden ranks
The City and the Kingdom all beckon
Glowing with glory and truth unmistaken
Past a moon bridge that glides on a water-fall
Past the cormorant's yodel, the mountain monkey's howl
Past the magpies croaking on a temple wall
Above me a little hut sits, waiting for redemption with its red lamps lit
Waiting for the mountains to pull back and reveal
The city beyond, the city at the river's end
The place where the sun rises, that we all hope is real
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| Bridge Over the Kyoto-Fu |
随笔纪律
翠河漂流
绝景有引
两人交流
夫妻旅行
站尖石滩
树根抓山
五個小小武士道
上山下鄉耍玩鬧
碰到一位忍者姐
打得耳光屁股捏
小小武士哭著跑
山上留下忍者道
青草股股
櫻花瓣飄
龍安寺下
春照月橋
風吹陽光
人流來往
花見盛開
創者來拜
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| St. Nicholas Cathedral, Tokyo, Japan |
Lenten Hanami
The cherry trees enter Spring fasting
Shooting forth their flowery prayers
And as the flowers fall and prostrate
in the Wind's blasting
All creation in their color shares
A word flower, from the bud
That first sprouted in our winter darkness
Opens now to meet the light
And the gently pulling wind
The flesh-tinged beauty
The pulsing veining
Of a thought that first proceeds the fruit
Our prayers are lifted
In the lighting
Towards buzzing angels
Pollen lifting
The incense of our prayers
To be swept up to God and spiritual food
Ambrosia of our universe's experience
Combined with time to form Scriptural Word
Memory
When I was young
I loved the Fall
Its color and its sharpness
But as I age
I love the Spring
For what I was before I realized the harder things
Hold to the joy
Don't forget the dancing
Of a young heart
Discovering the sun
Remember the citern and pipe
When they first delighted
Inhaling the world
As it blooms around
The colors of scarlet, of cobalt, and kingfisher
The fragrance of gardenia, jasmine, and rose
The sound of the ocean inside of a seashell
Turn life into love, and love into prose!
A Japanese Bridge and a Glowing Cross
Blessings of the Moon
My soul has grown fat
On the pearl studded midnight
the cumulus checkered against black sky
The placid Jiangnan flows ripple-less by
We move towards the Moon
The Moon moves to greet us
Then pull behind clouds to show she is shy
We then jet away on blackness and starlight
And she comes out from hiding in the bright beam of sight
There was never a night like this night or that night
The white-bellied koi swim through the blue velvet sky
There was never a force like this force or that force
Delight tower's power that men see when they die
The moon is a picture of what can't be patterned
A peace of eternity that we see and know
But only reflects the grace that scattered
The grace in us that we come to show
There was never a night like this night or that night
that needs bright clouds on a black silken sky
There was never a thought like this thought or that thought
As we see the Son's icon
As it becons and beams in the way which we fly
The Pain of Living in Lent
Old poets sing songs as the day spreads long
Within their white-walled pagodas and the shadows crawl down
As the farmers plow besides the way
all longing for this wealth of sweat and rice
Made deep into wine and wasted in laughter
Into songs of the sublime that set like wet plaster
Cracking as it dries
Falling apart before our eyes
With wine the heart melts like ice on a pan
And forces them to write Orchid-scented calligraphy
In scrawling, smoke-blackened pilfery
The monks and scholars transform in their stumbling into imagined poet farmers
And the wind that blows their minds
The ideals that reality binds
Becomes the smoke that blinds men's eyes
To the howling white pain of reality
To the howling white pain of reality
Cherry blossoms in the rain
Prepare the bright sadness
Of the Lenten hunger pains
The realization of our sins
The judgment and self-love
We're caught in
And our power and our pride
Our Church's self-righteousness
White without
But full of dead men's bones inside
Now its time to realize
And right the wrongs that sterilize
A hijacked Church with monks for men
A perpetual Lent to cover sin
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| Hanami on the Philosopher’s Path, Kyoto, Japan |
Bp. Joseph Boyd
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