Andrew Lansdown: Two Poems

Of Maples and …

1

Monks

Japanese maples,

moved by awful sympathy

for Tibetan monks,

are immolating themselves

beside the Buddhist temples.

 

2

Mothers

As if they, too, were

beseeching the Bosatsu

to save their children,

the maples adorn the worn

Jizo stones with blood-red bibs.

 

3

Marxists

Mao’s cadres wore

red stars on their uniforms.

With similar stars

the maples memorialise

the millions whom they murdered.

Andrew Lansdown

 

4

Martyrs

i.m. the 26 Nagasaki Martyrs, 1597

Shogunal maples

are stakes with copious flames:

all that is needed

to complete their purpose is

some Kirishitans for burning.

 

5

 

Messiah

Commemorating

Christ’s agony in the grove

of Gethsemane,

the maples model their leaves

on the splashes of His blood.

 

 

 

Windbells at Fushimi Inari Shrine

1

Beckoning

 

A shop at the shrine

selling big-tailed stone foxes

and toy-sized torii

has a dangle of windbells,

all dinging with the wind’s dint.

 

2

Resonance

 

The resonance of

this petite, perfectly-pitched

cast-iron windbell

lingers as frail and fair as

the sea-sound in a seashell.

 

3

Sacredness

 

There is everything

and nothing sacred about

this Shinto windbell

whose fashioned material

sounds out the ethereal.

 

4

Charmed

I will take it home

and hang it in the bamboos

by my writing room,

this small Japanese windbell

that has charmed me with its chime.

Andrew Lansdown