freed from all fear of man
You are lost
until the gate
is found
under the Chinese Nettle tree
spangled shade
gravel
raked
just so
island of white
a single stone
king of the garden
a peacock
cloaked in terrible eyes
shining paths
lead up and down
on a gentle rise
shades of pewter
and lichen
grandfather pine
the tallest tree
all of us wishing
for the same thing
I toss in my silver
the only colour
five-petalled mauve
are they flowers
or seeds dusting
the master’s haiku?
cast in bronze
letters I can’t read
the carved bird
forever on the brink
of flight
sprinkled awake
by the circling spray
facts speak
for themselves
no one listens
always stone
that takes us home
pruning the yew
a line of string
precisely level
enough work
today dreaming
may we all live
in houses stronger
than earthquakes
on the Atlas Cedar
new cones ooze resin.
A nijuuin renga at Chokushi-Mon,
Kew Gardens
on 18th July 2013.
The title is a line from Kyoshi Takahama’s haiku set in the Japanese Landscape at Kew. He composed it there on May 2nd 1936 and it was installed as a feature, in English and Japanese, by his daughter 43 years later.
There are actually two peacocks although I couldn’t tell the difference between them. One is called George – presumably after George III, in whose reign so much of Kew as we know it now was established.
Botanical 