March 29th. Along the Mariko River. A bit of (American) football in the park across the way. Delicious ginger tea and hijiki salad. Nice folks. A good bicycle ride.

Yes, here, along this riverbank,

Is where the bee sucks.

But I cannot slip into the cowslip’s bell,

Cannot balance on the petal of the yellow na-no-hana,

Cannot zoom down among the daffodils,

Cannot hover before the hearth,

Cannot reap from the rich, gold-studded anther.

This is not diminished desire.

When the little girl says,

“Mama, mama, stars, stars!

Fried-egg stars are in the flowers!”–

I desire nothing less than to rip off my shirt, scoop up the whole lot,

Press the yolks and whites and greens and dirty roots

Right through my skin. . . . And I want

To zip up into the air, pierce the warm breeze, out-bee the bee–

I want to streak down the walkway, just beneath the low-hanging, silvery limbs,

Down to where the young mother stands,

Smiling, leaning on a baby stroller,

I want to master intricate flight, out-bee a thousand bees,

I want to orbit, magic incarnate, her head, her heart, her flesh,

I want to alight on her cheek, make her flesh tingle,

I want the tingle to scream,

Like fine print through an enormous looking-glass,

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”

 

But zip?

What talk is that?

I cannot even float.

But if I could float,

If I could do just that much and nothing more,

If I could do nothing more than ride the breeze,

Well, yes, in that case, I guess I’d be content

To wander off as lonely as a cloud.

But I cannot. I cannot even float. Can you?

Yes, for a week or so, the bee sucks here.

Along this riverside, along this strip of cherry trees.

Can you imagine what he sees?

First the heavenly sea of red buds,

Then the coy cheeks emerging, the delicate white flesh, the lingering pink,

A soft, soft pink not trying very hard

To mask an aching, vibrant passion–invisible

Only to the most foolish of fools–

A heavenly sea of delicate cheeks, all wanting, surely, probably (don’t you think?), to be kissed.

Is it any wonder how easily the bee’s wings lift him?

How frenetically he flies?

No, I cannot indulge in the golden nectar as the bee does.

If I had to say, I’m more like the pampas grass,

The pampas grass on the opposite bank,

A survivor of the winter, still golden in the sun,

Strong in the breeze, but no longer supple,

Like an old man whose gotten himself upright,

Stiff knees, stiff back and all,

Determined, now, to stand, come what may,

An old man–hair coarse, unruly, dull, clumpy,

An old man wanting

But unable to take even a step forward,

Hollow, decaying–

Who knows that even a dull scythe could effortlessly do him in,

And who knows how the bee’s wings hum (“All those petals! all those golden gems!”),

Over there, across the river–

And yet stubbornly determined, like Ahab,

To be foreground to deep-blue sky,

And desiring, if only just once–

Desiring more than all the bees that have ever beaten wings–

To reach out and touch one–just one!–of those lovely cheeks.

Yes, a single cheek will do.