A Japanese Print

author’s note:

Japanese prints are a good way to travel when you can’t get out of the house.


A JAPANESE PRINT

Sometimes I meditate
on this Japanese landscape print...

I follow the leaves down
to the river winding its way
to distant mountains tufted with pine.
Their peaks lost in cloud.

But rather than wonder
about the secrets
of places I can’t see
I return to the peasant
in the foreground:

bent forward with the weight
of the sack of rice on his back
he trudges through slanting rain
on a road that follows the river.

Imagining his life, I ask myself:
all that work and for what?

To feed his poor family?
But why have a family
if the family will only be poor?

Nonetheless
such beauty in that print.
Made more beautiful
by my empathy for that man.

Neither he nor we knew
he could be beautiful.
And so, we needed the artist.

What I Learned While Alone: poetry ebook
© 2021, Michael R. Patton