Okutama

We drive the mountains,

Sloughing the city’s sour sebum,

Free for once from

The vending vex machine

Of vimvamp Tokyo.

 

Out here the world is tilting,

Bleeding itself beautiful,

Oxidizing our year,

Mollifying the fears

That forever together can bring,

And we drive on.

 

Curving this carved country

Of gullies and peaks,

We peek out speaklessly

At dying old dragon Japan.

 

Here’s a scarecrow, so

Oriental in its field,

And there a persimmon tree,

Its plucky plume of orange

Punctuating autumn’s auburn red

And mango yellow.

 

We find ourselves in nature, they say,

And finally there it is (and here we are) –

A twin lake so pristine,

So pure and palliative

That its strange and murky bottom

Can be forgotten

If only just for today.

 

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