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.