Kusamakura Read Free Page B

bloated. . . .
    The vague drift of my thought is abruptly interrupted at this point, when my right foot slips on a loose piece of sharp rock. I try to retain balance by shooting my left leg forward to compensate—and wind up landing on my bottom. Luckily, however, I have managed to come down on a wide boulder about three feet across. The painting box slung over my shoulder goes flying out from my side, but otherwise I escape any damage.
    As I get back to my feet, my eyes take in the distant scene. To the left of the path soars a mountain peak, in shape rather like an inverted bucket. From foot to summit it is entirely covered in what could be either cypress or cedar, whose blue-black mass is striped and stippled with the pale pink of swaths of blossoming wild cherry. The distance is so hazy that all appears as a single wash of blurred shapes and colors. A little nearer, a single bald mountain rises above the others, lowering over me. Its naked flanks might have been slashed by the ax of some giant; they plunge with a ferocious steepness to bury themselves in the valley floor below. That solitary tree standing on the summit would be a red pine. The very sky between its branches is sharply defined. A few hundred yards ahead of me the path disappears, but the sight of a red-cloaked figure moving along in my direction far above suggests that a farther climb will bring me to that spot. The path is appallingly bad.
    Of course the soil itself could quite easily be leveled; the trouble is that large rocks are embedded in it. Even were you to smooth the soil, there is no smoothing away these rocks, and even if the rocks were broken up, there would be no way to deal with the larger ones. They tower with serene indifference out of the broken earth of the track, innocent of any impulse to make way for the walker. Since they pay one no heed, there’s nothing for it but to climb over them or go around them. And even where there is no rock, the walking is far from easy. The sides of the path rise steeply, while the center forms a deep depression; you could describe the six-foot width as gouged into a triangular shape whose deep apex lies down the middle of the path. Making one’s way along it is more like fording a riverbed than walking a path. But it was never my intention to make this journey in haste, so I set off up the winding track, taking my time.
    Suddenly a skylark bursts into song, directly beneath my feet. I gaze down into the valley but can see no sign of the creature. Only its voice rings out. The rapid notes pour busily forth, without pause. It’s as if the whole boundless air were being tormented by the thousand tiny bites of a swarm of fleas. Not for an instant does the bird’s outpouring of song falter; it seems it must sing this soft spring day right to its close, sing it into light and then sing it into darkness again. Up and up the skylark climbs, on and on—it will surely find its death deep in that sky. On and up it climbs, slipping at last into the clouds, and there perhaps its floating form dissolves, so that finally only that voice is left hanging in the far reaches of the heavens.
    I turn a sharp rocky corner, then execute a swift, perilous swerve to the right to avoid a sudden drop into which a blind man would have tumbled headlong. Looking down, I see far below a vast yellow swath of wild mustard in flower. Perhaps, I think, this is the place that skylark would fall to in alighting—or no, perhaps it would instead soar upward out of that golden field. Then I imagine the tumbling skylark crossing paths with another as it rises. My final thought is that, whether falling or rising or crossing midair, the wild, vigorous song of the skylark would never for an instant cease.
    Spring makes one drowsy. The cat forgets to chase the mouse; humans forget that they owe money. At times the presence of the soul itself is forgotten, and one sinks into a deep daze. But when I behold that distant field of mustard blossom,