|
|
The Tanabata, or the Star Festival, is held on the evening of July 7. The festival traces its origins to a legend that Altair, the Cowherd Star (Hikoboshi) and Vega, the Maiden-Weaver Star (Orihime), were lovers separated by the Milky Way, and are allowed to meet just once a year-- on the seventh day of the seventh month. It is said that if it rains on this day, the lovers will be unable to meet. Traditionally, small pieces of colored paper inscribed with wishes are hung up in celebration of the festival.
--A Japanese Calendar
I.
I sat next to Orihime and Hikoboshi on the night train,
late express speeding south, through the heat-haze of July insects,
cicadas and crickets and steel-backed beetles.
Outside the car a woman beat a seawall
with a broom of dried bamboo, her bent shape receding
into the thick blackness.
Leaving Yokohama, full of curry and bourbon,
a white woman with vulgar lips,
calves chuffing an industrial fugue,
ignorant arms full of tea, chopped mussels, and mugwort cakes
from the harbor where the commodore came.
I cast my gaijin gaze to the shabby vinyl cushions,
the scuffed white floor of the rocking carriage,
unable to avoid being alone in this half-empty train,
unable to have skin like rice-paper
or slick black braids.
II. Uragi Miurakaigan Station. Disembark for Miurakaigan.
I sat next to Orihime and Hikoboshi on the night train,
dreaming in doubled vision, quiet as cats.
She laid her head against his shoulder,
and her hair was a sheaf of burned wheat
scorching his blue gingham shirt.
Their skin was sky-smooth--
his day-stubble brushed the collar of her khaki dress
as he rested his head beneath hers,
scalp showing clean and bright
as a snail’s spiral shell.
That morning, I had scrawled kanji
onto pink construction paper,
my calligraphy poor and unsure. As though my
obscene hands were palsied-- the lines did not connect,
the thickness of the stroke was wrong, too much ink
bled through the page. But I tied them all the same
to a persimmon-branch with green ribbon:
Peace. Happiness. Wisdom. Health.
III. Yokosuka-cho Station. Change here for JR Line to Tokyo.
I sat next to Orihime and Hikoboshi on the night train,
their mingled light scented with sweat and fish,
rusted bicycles drowned under the docks.
On the seventh day of the seventh month,
they slept, dreamed of cattle stamping wet grass;
the click-click-click of an ash loom.
Outside: Yokosuka, frigate-choked and filthy,
the smell of boiling octopus heavy on the roses
of waterfront gardens. Black butterflies sizzle
on the lights of manic pachinko parlors--
primordial soup of light and melted thorax. Here,
ticket wrinkled, I return to my bruised persimmons--
and all I can touch of this place
are its dead fruits.
Her hair brushed my hip as I stood to leave,
ducking under the silver door.
On the hollow planks of the station platform,
I put my hand to my waist-- a long, slick strand
had caught in my skirt,
black as a scraped suzuri.
suzuri: the inkstone used in Japanese calligraphy to gently grind the ink into a paste.
Catherynne M. Valente was born in Seattle, Washington. She holds a BA in Classical Studies with an emphasis in Ancient Greek Linguistics from the University of California, San Diego. Her poetry and fiction can be found online and in print in such journals as The Pomona Valley Review, and NYC Big City Lit, as well as the forthcoming anthologies, Approaching El Dorado and The Book of Fabulous Beasts. She received a special commendation for service in the arts from the California State University system in 2003. Her first chapbook, Music of a Proto-Suicide, was published in early 2004. Two novels, The Labyrinth and The Book of Dreams, are scheduled for release in summer and fall 2004. She currently resides in Yokosuka, Japan.
|
|
