Joy McCall (The holy room) & Tim Gardiner (The lookout)
Norwich, Norfolk, England & Manningtree, Essex, England

Touched By Saigyo

I. The holy room

I sit all evening in the holy room while light rain falls on the roof. My head is filled with Saigyo and his poem about the snipe rising from the marshes. I don't yet know why it matters–but you know when a thing touches your soul.

even to someone
free of passions, this sadness
would be apparent
the marsh where a snipe rises
with the autumn evening

II. The lookout

I watch from the lookout. In the moonlight, a woman walks hastily along the street below. She seems pre-occupied with her thoughts, unaware of the early morning chill or melancholic moon over the ocean. A cumulonimbus cloud dominates the horizon, internal flashes of white betray a gathering storm. In the blackness between the streetlights, I lose sight of her near the cliff steps.

first light
a snipe dives
from the breakwater
the sea keeps
its darkest secret