Pilgrim trail
Honshu
"Before you leave Koyasan take the track
through Okunion. It doesn’t take that
long to walk the whole length, there and back."
We tread the forest path between a mat
of moss that spawns two hundred thousand stone
cold stupas. Some grow straight, each soulless eye
outfaced. They stand in huddled groups, alone,
as single filed, unspeaking, we pass by.
Yet others lie as fallen logs among
the slime-green spores. They burrow down toward
the metamorphosed mother rock, so long
since left behind. We see just bare backs flawed
with small quartz veins that sparkle still beneath
the speeding dusk. They do not wear the red
avowal bibs proclaiming care, hung wreath-
like round the Jizo necks for children dead
before their years. Forgotten over time
they rot below the canopy, unguarded
by Bodhisattva.
Light fades as we climb
on, past dry-skinned satsumas, discarded
plastic bottles, a seal-wrapped candy bar,
set out on shrines. We search but fail to find
the place where Kobo Daishi’s bones are
waiting to awake and save mankind.