When I first encountered zen gardens during my time in Japan, I never quite ‘got’ them. On the surface they appeared boring, they lacked sensory appeal and they spoke in a language peaceful yes, but strangely dull to me.
It was only years later that I began to catch a glimmer of understanding; how their quintessential ‘changelessness’ is a key to grasping their true value. While the landscape around them blossoms into spring, turns ravishingly beautiful in summer, falling into the glory of autumn and then the austerity of winter, the zen garden remains seasonless, still, everlastingly the same in the midst of change. And so it is when contemplating the deeper truths of life in the midst of the chaos and churn of every day living.
What follows is not a poem inspired by zen gardens; but it seemed to share a similar feeling in its landscape, mood and intention as I wrote, puzzling over a life problem which could be seen to have its roots in Japan.
From my personal photos: Ryogen Daitoku-ji temple in Kyoto
Silence has many tongues
all untranslatable
I can no longer find you
in the mapping of words
Your silence says everything
and tells me nothing
transparent as a veil, unforgiving as stone
both mute and eloquent
in ambiguity
sealed in the armour
of staying unknown
So hard to know then
what really needs saying
and right now I can’t find the words
but I can search in two possible places
One is my heart
long unable to mend
the other my soul which in daily rebellion
kicks at how language
can’t hold us together
just this silence
which binds us invisibly as surely as love would have
if we’d been able to trust where it took us
So I search in the breaking
which grieves the unfinished
the squandered awakening
the reunion undone
and I still see so clearly
the greater intention
not this fugitive love
which cannot give more than
this silence for silence
which seems like an ending
but is really a listening
a dowsing for stillness
in this landscape of words
And out of the stillness
words rise to the surface
massive like islands
to say what needs saying
They rise up to answer a call from the future
a freshly made country not yet known or mapped out
with the naming of words
It will wait
And how we next meet will find its own way
like a mysterious traveller speaking in tongues
who returns to your doorway delivering a message
steeped in a language vivid with meaning
but which cannot be heard or translated
except by a much larger love
Not yet here
nina nakamura 