To be a Wandering Poet?
Saturday, at a group meeting, we were asked to describe the persona we would most like to be able to adopt to at this stage of our lives. For example, one friend said "to be an anthropologist, like Indiana Jones."
I did always think I should have majored in anthropology myself@ But for me, now, the "ideal" is a Wandering Poet, strolling throughout ancient Japan or China, heading down a path, stopping every once in a while to sip some wine at an out-of-the way tavern, then sitting under the moonlight to write a poem, perhaps smiling at a little girl or young
woman and playfully dedicating my poem to her--and finally heading down along the long, crooked road again, very deep into the mountains, and very probably never to return.
"Oh, sort of an Asian Jack Kerouac" another friend said.
And I said "Yes, I guess so. But older and without the drugs."
There is quite a tradition of such wanderers in Japan. Basho is probably the best-known.
And in fact there even is a sake called "Wandering Poet."
Guess I ought to look for some!
願はくは花の下にて春死なむ
その如月の望月の頃
negafaku fa fana no sita ni te faru sinan sono kisaragi no motiduki no koro
その如月の望月の頃
negafaku fa fana no sita ni te faru sinan sono kisaragi no motiduki no koro
"I pray that I might die beneath the flowers in spring,
in the month of the Buddha when the moon is full."
Verse by Saigyo.
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My navigational assistance is provided by a host of travel books, a Garmin GPS, my wife Connie, my own unerring instincts--and as often as not, a flip of a coin. Once I went off my previously-selected path by hundreds of miles to avoid a couple of miles of road contruction going west on US 2 in North Dakota. It generally seems to work out fine! Like the saying goes, "not all who wander are lost."