cardboard

bent in chilled rain
homeless man
shuffles cardboard across street

ride of the valkyries

maple seeds
in the wind
ride of the valkyries

cranes

cranes flying
against the riverbank
better than origami

The Flu

When I have the flu
I like to read
The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Exciting Art Hero!

I always learned a lot whenever I went into the countryside. Elderly country folks who seemed a little lonely would talk to me and ask me things. They were always curious. There was the time I was hiking up over the hillside in Okutama, the hinterlands outside the big city. I was alone and it seemed the trail I'd found running high up above the river was one only the locals knew about. That day, I was startled by a cry from up the hillside in the cedar forest. When I looked, I saw it was a deer bounding further up the steep hill and stopping to give the same warning cry again to the other deer of the forest. To me its cry sounded something like "scree-awww", very quick, very plaintive, with the pitch dropping sharply after "scree".

That was the day I walked all the way upriver, always up in the forest on the steep bank high up above the stream. I could hear the rush and the roar of the river below and I walked all the way out to a point where the stream narrowed and plunged over massive boulders. It was a long hike but it was worth it. Down at the streamside there were bright yellow stoneflies which meant the water was very clean and pure. Evidence of what I already knew in my heart -- that this was wonderful country. On the hike back, I encountered an elderly man in the forest and called out a greeting to him. As I came nearer, I saw much of his life in his short, broad body and the wisps of gray hair on his head. He could absolutely not look me in the eye as he talked. I'd seen that before in troubled people, but with this old man, I took it to be simple shyness. He had that charming, soft-spoken quality that some old-timers have, unable to make eye contact, but always smiling and nodding and asking about what I'd seen and where I was heading. He asked me if I was hiking and I said yes, I was. And he nodded like he thought it was a fine thing to do. When I told him I was going back to the station, he proceeded to explain very carefully the way back along the trail, still never looking at me, but still with the friendly look on his face, explaining very carefully, even though I'd come that way in the morning and I remembered it quite well. But you never interrupt people when they're being careful and helpful like that. If you were to interrupt them, you'd miss out on one of the most spontaneous and valuable parts of life.

When I got back to the tiny station out there in the countryside and boarded the train for the city, I was still thinking about the old man and I was feeling happy. A young blind woman and her friend got on the train and sat across from me and I watched the two women talking, the blind woman looking up above my head with a dreamy expression on her face. I sat quietly and I sighed from time to time as I neared the city and home.

On the days I stayed in my apartment, I would sit around and drink liquor and feel sorry for myself -- because I wasn't out in nature or because I didn't have a girl. I was almost always sorry I wasn't out hiking or something and I only sometimes thought about girls, although when I did, I thought quite intently.
Continued...
But on my trips out to the country it wasn't only elderly people who talked to me. Once, when I was far out on one of the southernmost islands, a woman who looked to be in her thirties came up to me and asked if she could speak English with me for a moment. Some of my acquaintances don't approve of that -- they called people like the woman "English bandits". It might have something to do with the fact that they were teachers and they were used to being paid $50 an hour to talk with the locals and finally they got to where they never wanted to do it for free. I'm not sure. But anyway, I didn't mind this lady. She was very polite and sincere and I found her charming, actually.

But by far one of the most intriguing encounters I had was out beyond the village they call Shimoyama. The name is a bit of a misnomer, because while it's true that the village lies at the base of the big mountains, it actually sits on a plateau that overlooks all the low country to the west. Anyway, out past the village I saw the big billboards again. I'd passed them many times before on the rural train. The first one said "Hiro Art!", the next, "Art Studio Hiro", each letter a different color. As odd as it seems, yes, there appeared to be some sort of artist's studio out there, even though such a thing out in the middle of nowhere would surely have no patrons. Every time I went to Tsukude or Taguchi, there they were, the billboard signs, "Hiro Art!" and "Art Studio Hiro". Imagine Andy Warhol promoting a studio in Appalachia.

So one day while I was riding the little one-car diesel train out for a hike and a jolly mushroom hunt near Tsukude, I was running early and seeing those wacky signs yet again, and quite on a whim, I suddenly felt compelled to have a look at this Hiro, this country artist with the quaint confidence in his backcountry studio.

There were only two other passengers in the train - two old grannies who'd been in to Shimoyama for a bit of shopping. I saw a new billboard: "Exciting Art, Hiro!" The train clacked and rocked over the rail switch and pulled alongside the "descending platform" (trains going away from the city are called "descending", those going toward the city, "climbing"). Without thinking, I stood and went over to the doors. Looking back at my seat, I noticed that my silver flask had climbed out of my pocket and was lying on the seat there. I dashed back over to the seat, grabbed the ornery bugger and jumped back to the door, pressed the button for the doors to open and stepped out onto the lonely, sun-baked and chipped old platform. The door closed and the train's engine grew louder and, begrudgingly it seemed, pulled out of the station very slowly at first, carrying the grannies and the driver on up the line, black exhaust rising, the sun glinting off the old silver train car as it rocked and clacked back onto the single track and on up the hill around the bend through the forest.

I checked the train schedule. The next one would come in two hours. That would be enough time to check out this Hiro character and his "art" and then go on with my real purpose for the day -- my sacred mushroom hunt.

There was no ticket gate and no station attendant. There was only a wooden box nailed to the wall with a slot in which good little disembarking passengers were to drop their tickets, and being a good passenger, I deposited my ticket and passed through the dark and cool station building and out into the sunshine. It wasn't too hard to find this Hiro's studio, what with the colorful signs and the fact that there were only two buildings out in the wide clearing under the sun. There was a house, and beyond it a tin-sided building with another of the colorful signs painted directly onto its side.

"Well Come to Hiro Art Studio," it read. At the edge of the building, there was a strange, fantastical, painted giraffe and he was looking out over the words with dispassion, it seemed. I started down the gravel road that led to the buildings, having little idea what lay in store for me.

As I neared the house a dog started barking. It was a Shiba and he was chained to a stake in the ground by his doghouse. He had clever eyes set close together and his tail curled up and over and pointed down onto his back. I looked at him and said, "Now why all the barking?" He stopped barking and changed to whimpering and sniffing the air and watching me with his clever eyes.

"Now that's better, isn't it?" I said.

Just then a woman opened the window and leaned out smiling.

"Hello," I said and waved to her.

"Hello." She nodded and smiled.

"I've come to see the studio," I said, raising my eyebrows.

She grinned big. Nice and rosy-cheeked, plain but pretty woman.

"Please," she said, pointing with an open palm over to the warehouse-looking building.

I turned to head over to the building and the woman disappeared from the window and reappeared quickly at the front door. I could see her slip out of her slippers and into sandals and she came out toward me with tiny, quick, laughable steps and looking very cheerful like I was the first person to stop there in years. The little Shiba started up barking again and pulling against the chain, standing on his hind legs and pawing at the air.

"Hush, Yosef!" she said.

"His name's Yosef?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, coming up to me. "It's German."

"Really?"

"Well, maybe," she said. She smiled again, looking a little embarassed. She had pretty, black hair in two pigtails behind her ears. I say she "came up to me" which is interesting because she really only came up to my chest. Tiny woman. I already liked her.

"Hiro will be glad," she said.

"Ah. Is Hiro your..." I trailed off and tilted my head thinking my question would be clear. Or at least vague enough to get an answer. But all she did was tilt her head back at me and smile.

I laughed. After toying with me she came out with it.

"Yes, my husband!"

"Oh!" I laughed again. We were at the door to the warehouse... I mean, studio, and she opened it. I had to duck going in.

Inside, it was a plain concrete floor with a couple of rough hewn wooden tables, varnished and glowing under warm lights overhead. And back at the far corner, standing facing us with a big grin on his face and his fists on his hips, was a man I took to be Hiro.

My first impression was shock. He was part bear, part giant, part laughing, big-bellied Buddha. But at the same time I felt instantly at ease with this curious fellow.

He came bounding across the floor, saying "welcome!", grinning the whole way. He offered me his hand. I stuck out my hand and while he crushed it, he kept glowing with that infectious grin jumping out from from his long black goatee beard.

"You come to see Hiro art!" he said, spreading his arms as a conductor does. It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes... that is why I have come," I only half lied.

"Good! Good!" he laughed loudly, which made his wife wince. I guessed Hiro to be in his forties. His wife seemed around my age. Their discrepancy in size was hard to reconcile. Yet there they were: beauty and... well, not quite, but still... the grinning beast.

Yes, beast. But in the best of ways.

"Well, look around! An-chan, show him around. Show him Hiro Art!" And watching his jolly expression, the twinkle in his eye, for the first time I sensed he was making fun of himself.

"Please come here," his wife said softly, beckoning me with that always funny downward and toward scooping of the fingers, like a cat pawing.

I complied. It was easy to comply with her. I looked back at Hiro with his whiskers and his girth and grinned at him because I was running to his wife. He just stood there with his fists on his hips again. Smiling. Sticking his belly out proudly.

His wife led me over to the far corner and stopped before a painting there.

"This is me!" she said.

I looked at the painting she was pointing to on the wall. I don't know how I did it, but I recognized it immediately as her. I say "I don't know how I did it" because drawing closer I quickly saw how... unusual... his style was.

It was a woman. It was her alright. But the face and torso were built up with pieces of wood. What I mean is, this Hiro standing over there (he was still grinning at us), had somehow conceived of a world where everything was made of wood. There was a woman in this world and her nose and lips and hair and even her eyes were parts of a tree or sawed and planed lumber, painted bright matt colors and by god, that's what he'd painted. Her nose was a tree trunk with graceful curves at the roots like you sometimes see in the forest, and here the roots arched over as her nostrils, a little wide and quite beautiful. Her hair was parted along the center and was made of two saplings on each side that had been trained around each other, growing in spirals and these were her braids. Her nose was set onto her face with seams visible there where the tree trunk joined the planed and smooth wood cut in at her cheekbones. Her face had a fine, beautiful structure and everywhere, the wood grain spread over her features.

I looked into the eyes of the lumber woman. Her eyes had the same wood grain only much lighter -- it looked like it might be pine. That is, if it were really wood and not a painting of a piece of wood. Her irises were mahogany with drilled out holes leaving blackness for pupils. Her lips were curious. It looked like he'd made them from the scarred tissue that forms around a fallen branch as the tree continues to grow and the bark bulges and starts to wrap the wound. I'd always thought it looked like lips whenever I saw a tree like that in the forest. And her lips fashioned in that way were painted soft pink and were the only part of the painting not done in matte, but shiny just like a young girl glosses her lips.

My eyes moved down along the line of her neck and shoulders, made from a carefully chosen tree trunk with wide-spreading roots for all the graceful curves at her neck and shoulders and collar bone, upper arms against her chest, everything with an intentional and slight assymetry.

And I tried not to stare (or to let her know I was staring, at least), but last there were her breasts, two saucer shaped bulges of wood cut from a tree, the seams again visible where they'd been fastened to her chest and in the center of each, a darker knot with a tiny concave depression in it, where a branch had wanted to form but instead left a little knob, a little bark covered nipple on the tree that the imaginary craftsman had chosen as the breasts for his sculpture in this strange world.

I was not going to look down to compare when I turned to his wife. I was going to look into her eyes.

When I finally did turn, she was smiling at me with raised eyebrows.

"That's something," I said.

"He's crazy, isn't he?" she laughed.

I made what I hoped was a "no comment" face.

"Do you really think it looks like me?" she asked.

I cleared my throat. "Well, I can certainly see a resemblance in the face."

She made a playful smack on my arm. People never did that here, but I was quickly finding that Hiro and his wife were not ordinary people.

I looked back at the painting. I don't know how he did it, but he made that painted wooden woman beautiful and the real woman, his wife standing there, had changed and was beautiful now, too. The wooden lady, the sculpture in the painting, really looked like her.

"An-chan! Let him look around!" Hiro boomed from across the room.

"I am letting him look around."

"Don't follow him. An-chan likes him, ne? You make him nervvous," he said, heavy on the "v".

"I don't like him!" his wife said. Then, "I mean, yes, I like him." She smiled. "He's got a flat stomach."

Hiro grinned and began patting his belly, laughing loudly.

"Go ahead, look around," his wife said.

"Thank you."

"If he tries to speak English to you, let me know. I want a good laugh."

I started to laugh, but then choked it back. She smiled at me without blinking for a very long time. Then she left me by myself.

"Where are you going, An-chan?" Hiro called over.

"I'm bringing tea and sweets."

Hiro lit up.

"But only one for you, big bear!" she said.

"Only one!" he said and began laughing in a peculiar way. It sounded almost like crying.

I walked along the wall, taking a little time standing before each painting. They were all quite small paintings. But there were all kinds of scenes -- there were animals, laborers, fields of ripening grain that when you looked closely you saw were tall and thin trees, with winter-pruned limbs for the rows of grain at the top. Everything was from a strange world and had been sculpted from trees and lumber. The paintings were amazing, really. I felt a little guilty about having dismissed him as I passed his signs all those times on the train.

I'd stopped before a curious painting. It was a figure wielding an axe, chopping down a tree. He was roughly done, like a scarecrow woodsman, with planks of wood for his torso and what seemed to be broom handles for arms. And the tree he was felling had bright red paintbrush heads instead of leaves. Or were they buds? I was puzzling over this when I noticed that Hiro had come up beside me. He was grinning again.

"You like this one?" he asked.

"Yes. Actually, I like them all."

Hiro nodded.

"Do you want this one?"

"Oh... I don't know." I leaned in and checked the price. He was asking about $200.

"I give it to you."

"Pardon? Oh no! That's OK."

"I want you to have it." He was grinning like a little kid.

"I couldn't take it."

"Why!? Why!?" he boomed, and then laughed loudly.

I was trying to come up with an answer. He smacked me on the back solidly, still laughing. Then he asked quite suddenly, "Where are you from?"

"America," I said.

"Ah, America!"

Just then his wife came through the door carrying a tray.

"America, An-chan!" he boomed.

"Oh?" she said.

"Have you been?" I asked.

"No, but I went to go."

"Want to go!" his wife corrected. She was laughing and she set the tray down on the table in the corner.

"America! I want to go!" he said again loudly, laughing.

"Where would you like to go?"

"Everywhere! Disney, Las Vegas!"

I raised my eyebrows.

"HA HA HA! No, it's a Hiro's joke!" he was laughing good now. When he became quiet, he said, "I want to see mountains, forests!"

"Good," I said.

"Montana!"

"That's a good place. I've never been. But it's a damned good place."

"DAMNED GOOD PLACE, An-chan!"

"I heard him," she said, wincing.

"What's your state?" Hiro asked.

I was tempted to say "confused". Instead I said, "Kentucky."

"Ah, Kentucky!"

"You know about it?"

"No. It's west?"

"Well, actually it's more east."

"South?"

"Everybody says so. But it's not. It's in the middle."

"It's mountains and forests?"

"Yes. Not as big as Montana, but there's plenty of old, old mountains."

"Good. An-chan, someday we will go Kentucky!"

"Let's!"

"I give you my painting and some day we visit Kentucky and Mr..."

"Oh, call me Paul."

"We visit Mr. Paul!"

His wife shook her head.

"Is that a fair trade?" I asked.

"Fair! Fair! Someday," he said.

"But I don't know when I'll go back there," I said.

"OK. OK. Someday," he said. Then, "An-chan, he likes the painting." He pointed over to the woodsman. "I give it!"

His wife smiled and clapped her hands like a girl.

The painting I really would have liked to have was back in the corner. The "portrait" of his wife. But I didn't feel comfortable saying anything about it. Anyway, I was happy and surprised that I'd have a real painting. I'd never bought any kind of art before.

"Would you like a sweet?" his wife asked. She went over to the table where she'd set the tray among the clutter of paints and jars and brushes. With the table lamp clamped there, it looked like a still life painting itself. She brought a plate with two little rice sweets. There were flower petals on the pink one and toasted sesame seeds on the other. My eyes lingered on the table in the corner. I saw now how he worked. A thick square of paperboard, a work in progress. He'd painted the whole square off-white. Then the colors were applied for each layer of wood, meticulously, building his "sculpture". There were none of those quick impressionist's strokes to capture a scene. He was building. I couldn't conceive of how long each painting must take him. But he wasn't a painter. He was a craftsman, I felt.

His wife handed me the plate with the delicate sweets.

"An-chan made them!" Hiro said proudly.

"Wow, they're... They look nice."

His wife smiled.

Hiro picked up the other plate and jabbed a little bamboo fork into his one rice sweet and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth and began chewing and grinning big.

I took the little fork and stabbed it into the pink one and bit off half. It was chewy and lightly sweet and a little sour at the same time.

"That's sakura," his wife said.

"Hmmm," I said with my mouth full.

"Where do you live now?" his wife asked.

I swallowed. "Down in the city."

"Very exciting!" Hiro said. He was still chewing.

"Actually, I wish I lived out in the country."

"Come live with us!" Hiro said and began laughing again. Then he started choking and coughing.

"Eat slowly!" his wife scolded. "He doesn't want to live with us!"

"Two's company, but three's a crowd," I said.

"Sorry?"

"Uh..." I laughed. "I'd be in the way."

"No! No!" Then a moment later, "You come here just for Hiro art?"

"Well, actually I was going mushroom hunting."

"Ah! Amigasatake, no?"

"Yep!"

"Morilles" he said to his wife.

"I know!"

"Where?" Hiro asked.

"I was planning on going on out to Tsukude."

"Hmmm, maybe good place." Then, "But these hills good, too."

"Really?"

"Sometimes I find them."

Oftentimes the real morel hunters, the fanatics, will lie to you and mislead you in order to protect their honey spots. But it didn't seem like a thing Hiro would do.

"Then maybe I should look around out there," I said.

"Yes. It's good place."

"Where is it exactly?"

"Come," he said.

His wife and I followed him over to the door and out to the gravel road.

"Go there. There's a path. You go up into the hills. About 30 minutes walking, it's many good places."

"Elms?" I asked.

"Ichou. And sakura."

I knew sakura were cherry trees. But "ichou"...

"I should know 'ichou', but I forgot it," I said.

"Maidenhair," he said. He reached over and stroked his wife's hair and she pulled away from him.

"An-chan likes!" he boomed, laughing again. And I laughed with him.

He grabbed her pigtail and pulled it.

"Ouch," she yelped. "Stop it!"

"Ping-pong!" he said and laughed loudly. She smacked his arm.

"An-chan likes!"

"No, I don't like it!" she said. "You big monster!"

"She gave me water," Hiro said in a funny voice.

I didn't get it.

"You know?" he asked.

"No."

"Quasimodo!" he hunched over. "Ping-pong!"

Then I got the joke and laughed, which seemed to piss off his wife.

"I'm sorry, Ah-chan," Hiro said. He reached over and hugged her, with her trying half-heartedly to get away. Then he kissed her as she grimaced.

"You wanna kiss, too?" he said looking at me and pointing to his wife.

I laughed and waved my hand. She pushed him away and hit him on the arm again.

"If you go hunting, you wanna drink?" he asked me.

"Uh..."

"Liquor! Plum schnapps!" he said, heavy on the "sch".

"Well, I brought my flask," I said. I pulled it from my pocket and showed him.

"Let's drink!"

"OK," I said.

His wife shook her head.

We went back in the "studio" and over to his workbench. He moved some sketches aside and there was a clear bottle with a cork stopper and a dull red liquid in it. There was one glass.

"I'll bring another," his wife said.

"No! We don't require," he said smiling.

"Yes!" she said.

"No!" He grabbed her around the waist and started kissing her again, with her fighting him off.

Then he let her go and reached for the bottle. He uncorked it and poured out some of the liquor for me in the glass and handed it to me. I sipped at it. It was strong and sour and pretty good.

Hiro tipped up the bottle and drank from it. "Ahhh!" he said. His wife was shaking her head.

"Now you won't work all day," she said.

"No! Now I work better all day!" Then, "And all night!" He laughed loudly.

"Another?" he asked me.

"Well..."

"For Morille!"

"OK."

He poured me another and then he tipped up the bottle again. I drank from my glass. A little faster than the first time.

"An-chan?" he asked.

"No."

"It's rude!" he looked at me. "Rude!" he pleaded.

"It's OK," I said to her.

"Rude!" he laughed.

"Shut up!"

"HA HA HA HA..." he was booming out his laugh again.

"Shut up!" She took the bottle from him and took a sip. Her face flushed immediately.

"There! Happy?" she asked, shoving the bottle back at him.

"Hiro is happy! Mr. Paul is happy!" he said. "An-chan is happy!"

His wife shook her head again. "A big bear!" She was glaring at him, but she wasn't really angry. "You are a big bear who drinks plum schnapps!" she said.

"Maybe I should get going to look for shrooms," I said.

"Yes, look carefully," he said to me, very serious, directing me with his finger.

"But let's have a drink of my whiskey first," I said.

His eyes lit up. I took off the cap and handed the flask to him. He took a drink and then started making a growling sound, which from him I took to be how he expressed pain. He wiped the flask and handed it back to me. I took a swig and rolled it over my tongue. Then I swallowed and felt the burn going down.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Wild Turkey."

"Ah! Tah-key! You are smart man!"

"It has a way, doesn't it?" I said.

"What?"

"It has that little certain something." I was a little tipsy.

Hiro nodded, but I still didn't think he understood.

"My uncle used to say that if you were drinking Wild Turkey, people could smell you from across the street."

"Yes!" he boomed. "Good strong smell!" He leaned over and breathed in his wife's face. "How An-chan?"

"Kusai!" She grimaced, waving at the air in front of her face.

"Care for a drink?" I offered her the flask.

"No, thank you."

"Well, I'll go have a look for the forest fish," I said.

"What?" Hiro asked.

"Morilles," I said.

"Yes! Forest fish!" and he began laughing, his belly jiggling, booming out guffaws with the sound bouncing off the tin walls, like I'd made a grand "American joke".

"Well, thanks for the tour and the sweets!" I said, looking at his wife. She was smiling prettily. I was tipsy. "And the schnapps," I added, turning back to Hiro.

"You are welcome," he said. "Good luck! Do your best!" He raised his fist in the air.

"I will."

"Good luck," his wife said.

"Thanks!" I smiled at her. Must stop that.

"Look for the animals!" Hiro said.

"Pardon?"

"Paintings. They show you the morels," he said.

"OK," I said. I figured it was just drunken talk.

I walked over to the door.

"Don't forget. Stop again and I give you the painting," he called over to me.

"You don't have to."

"I must!" he said.

"Goodbye!" I waved and went out the door. As it closed I looked back for one last glimpse of Hiro, huge and bearish, and his little wife in pigtails, and I walked out into the warm late afternoon.

Everything was changed. Whereas before I'd just seen a clearing, now I saw a meadow with tall grass and blue and gold wildflowers. I heard a cuckoo's call carrying down over the hills with the breeze. I walked the way Hiro had shown me and at the edge of the forest there were warblers calling to me. Everything was bright and light. I knew it would wear off. But for now, everything was bright and light.

Then I was in the cool of the forest on the path and walking up through the cedars and cypress and making grand theories about how to tell them apart by just looking at the bark on their trunks. Before I knew it, I was at a crossing of paths and wondering which way I was supposed to go. And down at the corner formed by the two paths was a little sign nailed to a post with a painted hare on it, with a wood plank body and dying tree trunk ears and I knew now this was what Hiro was talking about. I walked on in the direction the hare pointed, still feeling good and seeing things I hadn't seen before.

I was up on the top of a rise and I stopped and squatted down to rest for a moment. The forest had changed around me. On the east side of the path were the same second growth cedars, but on the left side, going down the slope, it was a broadleaf forest with oaks and cherry trees.

I kept along the path and it curved and rose from time to time and then, far below through the cedars, I could see an old, overgrown forestry road. Then, I almost tripped over it and went back to look. It was another painted sign, this time it was a pheasant and he was telling me to take a narrow deer trail that branched off to the left. I was glad I saw him because I would have kept on straight ahead on the main path.

This deer trail zigzagged through the leaves and saplings on the steep slope and went down steeply and then curved along the top of a ravine and along a ridge out from it. I heard the warblers calling to each other again and I stopped to listen to them for a while. Each one's song was a little different, as if they were comparing interpretations. Then I pushed on, with the trail going along atop the ridge and the slope down each side became more gentle and the land flatter. This time I saw him from far off. Down at the corner where my deer trail met a bigger path, there was a sign with a boar on it, painted by Hiro. His snout was saying to take that wider trail out further along the ridge rather than the deer trail on over the hillside. Hiro had made him a clever little wild boar with sharp, proud tusks and a glint in his eye, like he knew some big secrets. I walked for another five minutes, listening to the warblers calling again. Each time I heard them it made me smile.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him, sitting squat among the leaves, with his gnarled, pitted head, looking like a Russian peasant in a weathered tophat.

"Monsieur Morille," I said out loud. "There you are!" And looking out past him, down the slope, up popped another, and another, and then I saw that all down the hillside there were morels, mostly blacks and already a few whites, but hundreds of them. I walked down through them carefully, fished a paper sack out of my jacket, unfolded it and began the harvest. I walked among them enchanted, taking only one out of every three or four I found, leaving the rest to carry on undisturbed.

When the sack was full, I sat down on the forest floor, on the leaves from last fall. I looked back up the hillside at the mushrooms. How they looked standing among the fallen leaves and the new green foliage on the saplings. Then I looked up overhead, up through the tiny new leaves. It was a cherry and maidenhair forest. There were some maples, too, with star-shaped leaves like hands playing rock-paper-scissors. The sun was low beyond the hillside. Up against the slate of the sky, those new spring leaves were an uncanny green. I looked back up the slope, at all the morels that were still there and up at the leaves in the trees again. Hiro came to mind again and I thought that surely this fellow must be some sort of wizard.

Back over my shoulder I saw the little fan-shaped leaves on the maidenhair trees and they made me smile again. I remembered Hiro stroking his wife's hair and I laughed out loud into the forest and felt strange as it echoed and the warblers grew quiet.

"Sorry," I said in a low voice.

Soon, I saw it was time to leave and I took the trails back, passing the boar and the pheasant and finally the quiet hare and I thanked each one of them in turn. The liquor had worn off, but now I was drunk on something else.

It was dusk when I came out onto the gravel road beyond their studio and house. I knocked at the door to the studio and after a moment, Hiro opened it, smiling, and looking much more subdued than in the afternoon. I could tell he'd been working hard.

"You find it?" he asked.

"Yes!" I smiled. "Here..." I took out another paper sack and started putting some good mushrooms in it. "Here you go," I said.

"Thank you!" he said, with the afternoon cheer returning.

Yosef was barking now and I turned and saw Hiro's wife walking over. It had been a grand day. They asked me if I'd stay the night, but I begged off.

"Wait here," Hiro said.

I watched through the open door. He went off to the corner and came back with a package wrapped in brown paper. I couldn't see under the wrapping, but I knew it was the painting.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yes, I insist!"

"Yes," his wife said smiling.

"Well... thank you."

"Please enjoy looking."

"Thank you. I will."

"Don't you stay here tonight?" he asked again.

"No, I really have to get back."

"OK. Next time," he said, happily.

As I rode the train down the mountain and back into the city, I was sorry I hadn't said yes.

maples

lonely day
watching maples
in the wind

fireflies

Yesterday's weather was magnificent. Cool, overcast morning. Then thunder shook the building where I work. Rain fell lightly at first, then in sheets. The rain grew whiter, rounder, colder. Hail, the size of pachinko balls (?!) falling with more thunder. I gestured for one of my students to stand up and have a look, but being a good girl, she didn't dare stand and look out the window during class.

cherry petals
in a hailstorm
like morning fireflies

by afternoon, the sun cast long shadows and all the hail had melted. There was a cool breeze and the only remnant of the morning was in the memory of the rain and the fluttering petals outside the window.