Master Ryōkan
Master Hokusai
Master Issa

Tell me,
On your migrations,
Did you leave Japan,
Where did you land ?
Returning did you stay ?
Or did you hide, beneath the crested waves,
The songs and games that children play,
Where fireflies and dewdrops fade ?
Like the rough Year just awake,
Like the barrels Coopers make,
For fools and beggars to partake ?
Such flavours,
Sprigs and berries, subtle herbs;
Cakes and rice wine to be shared; partaking,
On the flight learnt from the Toad,
Whose sobbing waterwheel it knows,
To quench the thirst of joy and sorrow.
To crouch beneath and perch above,
Dispense the seasons, hand in glove;
The waistcoat and the boots you wear,
The fabrics stitched to join and tear,
The Glover’s son did not regret,
Coarse and homespun, common thread,
Whose seams were sewn with care and fret,
Majestic, laced with golden fire,
O’er hanging firmament’s desire,
Espied on branching canopies,
On sterile trodden promontories,
Beckoned by encumbered seas,
That wrap themselves like woman’s care,
To quest the hero’s courage there.
The rivers and the roots of trees,
The brooks and rivulets and streams,
All flowing on their way it seems,
Or floating like the clouds on air,
The reign of rains of mortal cares,
That wet green hopes and plant our dreams.

Did Turner, Keats and Shelley know,
What conversations then would grow ?
The pictures that they paint would show,
Ther kith and kin and forbears bold,
Who travelled through this earthly globe;
To seek and find them, you will know.