leaning in – – haibun

Leaning into the blizzard we enter a realm of footsteps and prickling clouds of snow. At first, effort overwhelms our concentration but we plod on until…there is a shift…what was hard is now a steady state of one step after the other, forward, forward into the night…a motion that could go on forever. Only when we stop do we feel lead in our legs, our burning ears, cheeks and toes.

.

steady march

tall winter moon

holding the light

.

©️2019 Ontheland

On the eighth we climbed Moon Mountain, wearing the holy paper necklaces and cotton hats of Shinto priests, following behind a mountain monk whose footsteps passed through mist and clouds and snow and ice, climbing miles higher as though drawn by invisible spirits into the gateway of the sky–sun, moon, and clouds floated by and took my breath away. Long after sunset, moon high over the peak, we reached the summit, spread out in bamboo grass, and slept…

…How many rising

clouds collapse and fall on

this moonlit mountain…

Basho, “Narrow Road to the Interior,” translated by Sam Hamill, the Essential Basho, p. 24-25