A Bunch of Fives - Stories by James Roderick Burns (55)

Life of Issa

LIFE OF ISSA

1

HAIKU POETS, THOUGHT Master Issa, were rather peculiar animals: poised, ink-brush on hand, beside lake and chestnut tree, moon-viewing platform, dusty summer road. Blossom-brief, delicate as wind-blown reeds – ever seeking a life of resonant loneliness.

And yet!

Here squats the priest in a pristine winter field; here, houseflies make love when the poet leaves the room!

2

Motherless at three, step-mothered at seven, catapulted by fifteen from mountain village to capital. But from this barrel of ashes he drew feathers, a beak, shaky wings. At twenty, a workshop apprentice, he leapt the rungs far past his master, burst into sun with glittering sides.

3

Helping monks with their verses was pleasant enough, but beyond the door was a pepper-tree, and beyond the pepper-tree, the world. Surely cuckoo and craggy shore were calling!

He packed a satchel with two paper-robes, a fine lice-comb, then walked into the first of seven travelling summers.

4

‘Rice, master?’

‘My horse will recross the plain.’

‘The shrine? This way.’

All along, lawyers fought over his father’s house.

No matter.

The peony, mild-pink, emerged from its green corona. Hot-spring monkeys knocked off caps of snow.

5

Barely had he returned when the village pricked his skin. Only a poem could relieve such irritation.

In my home

even the fleas aren’t afraid

to bite a big man

6

Split-houses still had room for growth: a wife, daughter, bursting like seed-pods with life. Second fruit, third – each sweeter, briefer, than the last. At five decades’ close he married again, lost again; married over. At six, burned through timbers, paper walls, like a breeze-lofted ember.

In the end, only thoughts: anthology strokes, charcoal-sketchbooks, twenty thousand dragonflies lifting out of sight.

7

At last – light.

In a flash

the lake is filled

with fireworks!

First published in Cool Beans (Summer 2024)

Next: Squirrel City