Poetry: A Postcard from Kyoto at Rush Hour
A Postcard from Kyoto at Rush Hour
A perverse quiet even at rush hour
even from battalions of uniformed teens
afraid of awakening warlord emperors
At the Pink Bunny Cafe a pastel blue
elephant stylized into a ball
wrapped around a raspberry bear
Old women squashed
into the shape of a Z
crossing the streets glazed with rain
One thousand and one gold lacquered
radiantly female images of Kannon
manifested upright for 733 years
Another wooden temple so vast
that only rope braided from women’s hair
could have dragged its enormous beams
A glass geometrical monolith
vaster than Blade Runner’s
imagined future contains
The panther train eager to carry me
back to Osaka leaving maybe
a moved pebble at Rengeo-in Zen garden.
Taken from Dr. John Freed’s newly released chapbook – “Our Ancestors Were Chinese Cranes” – published by Phoenix and Son Press.
About the author
John Freed at Timberline Lodge. Photo by Stacy Alexander
Dr. John Freed is a professor of humanities and liberal studies in the School of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Dramatists Guild.
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