She is as the sky--

A deep blue rock, a castle of sand and silt

A crag of Susanoo's ancient fire long-cooled.

In the valley, the withering Nihonjin

roam about in lorries and trains

between the wafting fingers of smoke beside the station

A Gaijin stands, fiddling an e-cigarette

the burning of it makes hollow his lungs

and his breath is guarded from the freshened air of a summer's morning.

The clouds flank the snow-capped summit

and shield her face as a bride's veil

He watches the men in the smoke-filled cubicle

their fogged eyes empty of the promise of a time long past

the bloodshot sclera

Their ruined caldera of hope.

--He remembers the Statue of a man in Ueno

In the rain, as if his eyes wept

the reflections of the streetlamps upon his somber face

and the battlements of concrete and plastic.

A grain of sand, sifted monumental from the summit

Once again,

the station

Tokyo is a massive heart, breathing the Hime of the old and the ached promise of hope

left as Miso at the bottom of a bowl.