Warrior Dreams at Suma-Akashi

Flickering past
between buildings and wires,
the autumn sea
……. (Jun Tsutsumi)

9 Nov. 2025. 17 poets – from Kyoto, Osaka and Nara – gathered at the temple gate of Sumadera, Kobe, for a ginko (composition stroll) … and then a soba lunch beside the Inland Sea in Sumaura Park. The only trouble was … it only stopped raining later, when we moved to Akashi!

Sumadera was one of the last places Basho had visited on his Records of a Travel-worn Satchel journey in 1687-88. He relates how he kept thinking of the Minamotos’ rout of the Taira at nearby Ichinotani, and today the temple welcomes the visitor with two equestrian statues of two of the protagonists, Kumagai Naozane and the boy warrior, Taira no Atsumori, just beside the gate. According to the Heike Monogatari, Atsumori’s head was one of seven thousand Taira scalps to be taken in that terrible show-down, which Yoshitsune had masterminded. Atsumori, still a teenager, was found to have a green flute, 青葉笛, tucked into his armour. When his wife had later visited the battlefield she had taken it away from his headless corpse and put it to her lips. Thereupon, magically it had played itself! Atsumori himself has two graves nearby – one for his head and one for his body. Both have gorinto stone towers to mark them out.

須磨寺や吹かぬ笛聞く木下闇
Suma Temple —
from the shade of a summer tree
hearing the ‘unblown flute’
……. (Basho)

Stones like
a pile of skulls
streaming with rain —
Atsumori’s grave
……. (Tito)

Late autumn rain —
now no one cares about
that young warrior’s flute?
……. (Akishige Iida)

…”An ancient writer pointed out that autumn was the best season to visit this beach, for the scene excelled in loneliness and isolation at that season. … The island of Awaji lies just across a narrow strip of water and the corresponding hill on the mainland side divides the beach of Suma on the left from that of Akashi on the right. … I saw before me the aged grandmother of the young emperor taking him in her arms, his mother then carrying him on her shoulders, his legs pitifully tangled with her dress, and all of them running into a boat to escape the onslaught of the enemy. … This is probably why, even today after a thousand years, the waves break on this beach with such a melancholy sound.” (Basho, Oi no Kobumi’, trans. Yuasa, adapted)

Facing the sea
a line of stone Jizos …
as if still praying
for Heike souls
……. (Akira Kibi)

We had heard that Ozaki Hosai, the now-popular Taisho Period freestyle haiku poet, had once spent many months living at this temple.

雨に降りつめられて暮るる外なし御堂
Confined by the rain,
nothing left but evening darkness
for this Buddha hall
……. (Hosai, Sumadera, 1924)

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The heaviest downpour was reserved for our visit to Sumaura Park and its usually spectacular viewpoint out across the Akashi Strait to the Island of Awaji. A kuhi (poem stone) there is carved with the following haiku:

かたつぶり角振り分けよ須磨明石
Oh, snail,
splay your horns out wide:
one to Suma
the other, to Akashi
……. (Basho)

And so we returned to the Sanyo Line station, travelling on a few stops to the 35th parallel, which runs through Akashi. This was the furthest west that Basho ever reached on his travels. Near Hitomaru Station we were shown a small shrine for the severed arm of Taira no Tadanori. Several poets with bad arms prayed there for their healing!

Next, we walked to the privately owned Ryokuutei (Green Rain Pavilion) 緑雨亭 for our Kukai (haiku evaluation meet), courtesy of its proprietor, Yutaka Imai of the Ibuki Haiku Circle. The meeting was kindly officiated by our members, Yaeno Azuchi and Tomiko Nakayama, and the kukai led by Richard Donovan. During the counting of votes, many of us managed to have a look at the Pavilion library, full of haiku books. The identities of the kukai poem authors were only revealed after lively discussion about the merits/demerits of each verse that had accrued at least 3 points. The most popular of them were:

Autumn drizzle —
rising from the mist below
Heike warriors’ voices
……. (Yaeno Azuchi, 8 points, 1st.)

thick autumn mist —
the silvery-grey horizon
appears and disappears
……. (Jun Tsutsumi, 7, 2nd.)

green persimmon
rolling on the path —
cypress-bark wall
……. (Keiko Takayama, 6, 3rd.)

Akashi Bridge
lost in cloud —
my poem’s gone
……. (Tito, 5, 4th.)

Two more from our Kukai to end this report:

Towering apartments —
the historic placenames
as they are
……. (Reiko Tawara)

One thousand yen
a monk chants a sutra
to the living
and the dead
……. (Duro Jaiye)

Memories

a sepia photo
slips from her diary －
October dusk

This summer was hotter and longer than ever before. People grew weary of the sultry weather and kept putting off what they should have already done. So did I.

One day, while the heat was on, a text message arrived from my wife: “Come back immediately.” Sensing the urgency, I boarded a train straight away.

I checked the fastest route back on my smartphone, then changed trains at Namba to catch a limited express.

After a while, there was an on-board announcement: “Due to an accident further down the line, the express will be delayed.”

suspended in dusk －
the train runs slowly
headed for the past

Eventually, I reached the terminus, Unusually, not a single taxi in sight.  My return had taken only two hours, but it felt like the longest journey of my life.

On entering the hospital room, an unexpected chill enveloped me.

I glanced at my wife’s bloodshot eyes. She was sitting next to my mother, who was cold and seemed smaller than I could ever remember.

Spinning Pinwheels

K. Ramesh in Tamil Nadu, recently sent me a digital copy of his new haiku and haibun collection, Spinning Pinwheels, which includes both new material and selections from his previous books. It was published by Red River in New Delhi, the same publisher as gave us Geethanjali Rajan’s earlier collection, Longing for sun, longing for rain. Ramesh’s book is characterized by a razor-sharp, clear perception of what is truly significant.

the train arrives …
raindrops from
another town

owner’s tree . . .
for the tenant upstairs
a view of blossoms

hill station tea shop . . .
I listen to another
elephant story

Ramesh teaches physics at Pathashaala, a Krishnamurti Foundation school located near Chengelpet, Tamil Nadu, and has contributed in the past to Icebox. The imagery in the book is the India of today: age-old, wise, rural, urban, restful, patient, dynamic …

sound of a coin . . .
the gypsy’s monkey
looks into the bowl

the silence
as we drink the morning tea . . .
mother’s wrinkled hands

sugarcane harvest . . .
every boy in the village
gets a piece to chew

This second haiku was one of the very few containing a break after line two, rather than after line one. Consequently, for better or for worse, one gets into a sort of groove while reading them.

The haibun section of the book is very short, but I particularly enjoyed the last one, On the Road, recounting his early Western literary and artistic experiences and influences. The book ends with a lovely black-and-white picture of the author in profile wearing a broad woven straw sunhat.

I once had the pleasure to meet Ramesh and compose with him in his native place, one of the most truly civilized parts of planet Earth. I hope very much to do so again.

everyone asleep . . .
sun rays on a violin
hanging on the wall

vendor on the beach—
from hand to hand
a spinning pinwheel

starlit sky …
I touch a turtle
before it enters the sea

I felt the presence and the warmth of human hands throughout the book… and  I now press my own hands together in salute. All-in-all, excellent work; inspiring! ISBN 978-93-48111-75-3.