Tuesday, April 18, 2017




                                                       Nichiren, Izu Exile (1261)


Jogasaki
—lava fan of Ōmuroyama!

4,000 years of rain and wind,
wave salt and sun

to make towering Kesakake Pines,
knotted Wax Myrtle
and musk of fern and litter
of old, old wild cherries blooming

deep polished cleaves
of black stone spilling fresh streams
into cheek pink blush 
of barnacles in blue clean 
wash of shallows 

Futo town didn't spring up
but more flowed down
with lava spill around the older
Harai volcano

For decades fishermen in huts
on pumice cliffs
spotting Mullet schools,
flag waved signals
for boatmen to herd the fish to shoal

walking across land
that spread out like a wave

Jogasaki--

exiled monk
cast on wave torn jut
of cooled basalt prisms

a volcano offers more than molten earth

a love that smells of sea water