#guangwu

Nokonoshima (能古島) , or ‘The Love-antique’, by Howie Abel

In Hakata bay is perched a fledgling island desperate for glimpses of foreign lands but she is sheltered like a diamond within her guardian’s hands.

Few men know, and fewer care about the treasure buried there for most it is not worth the fare nor could care less what I will share, but some will know of what I speak not of kings or khans or tsars or sheikhs or Brits or French or Turks or Greeks, but only of a love-antique.

Nokonoshima is its name but Shikanoshima is the bay’s great fame for there two farmers found one golden seal that Guangwu himself once claimed. Invasions often too passed by Nokonoshima’s doleful eyes from fabled Jingu’s three year wars to Kubla Khan and Mongol hordes Yet, though few and far between, not all waged war on the unseen: Some learnt much from foreign men and went back home to teach again that history would be but blood and sin if not for Xavier, Kukai, and Tenjin.

The sea seethed with rage, how it rained and poured while the wind whipped up a monstrous tempest! One man alone would be a pawn on nature’s chessboard but under our umbrella we were Emperor and Empress!

Do you remember the marigolds strewn across that promised-land, the sunflowers bowing down to nature’s wrath, and the golden sand of the beach we walked along hand in hand with pieces of umbrellas rent asunder by battering gales; of drenched animals, bands of goats trapped in pens while mocked by the song of fleeing birds relishing in the storm, watched in envy by bloated rabbits gallantly withstanding the grand onslaught of water. Yet this was what they knew, how they lived: the flora and the fauna were adapted to this environment, and we were the foreigners, though welcomed by all, and not least at the temple where statues capturing expressions from former ages upon their chiseled surfaces greeted us at the top of stones stairs: hints of mythology hidden from tourists like us, and too the history contained in old kilns which gave an industry, a lifestream to this island, to its youth, its culture, its people, and these kilns which once carried the fire of civilisation, were now a solemn antique… Well, what once wrought art now becomes it, and the history of all becomes part of our little story.

But it wasn’t there alone we walked: In Dazaifu we saw bustling shrines and quiet zen temples reclaimed by nature whose wise spirit outgrew all signs of old foolish legislature.

We munched on fruit and exotic sweet along mountain path and mountain street where we talked for hours, and never have I seen such beauty since, in the streams, the waterfalls, the wild flowers, and all those creatures of the wilderness, most of all you, for you know the words I spoke then are as true as they are now, and will be true long after the beat of my heart is quelled and surrounded with the memories of those it touched and felled collected piece by piece into love’s mythology.

But you spoke of other mythologies, heroes past but never present, of feats greater than can be produced by all our world’s technologies, of fallen empires, Rome and Greece, tales of men who dared enough to dissent, to oppose the Gods, and never to repent, and how we love and praise such fools as these, and how no great man ever existed who thought himself wrong enough to give apologies, And how no great man can live now, for we are lost and lonely and scrambling for meaning, in dying institutions, in manufactured expectations, in any semblance of pleasure, no matter how false or narrow, because we are weaned on lies and falsehoods where words have betrayed their etymologies. We walked aimlessly along the ruins of Fukuoka castle as you spoke and I pondered whether in past realms, like those of the pharaoh, his priests and scribes, his craftsmen, and all his common folk, the sands of time could change but what the sand concealed remained: Vox clamantis in deserto.

One day we caught a train with no regard for destination and proudly disembarked at a random railway station and explored our new surroundings with the curiosity of children, every nook and cranny, every field, and every building. Another day we went to Nagasaki’s peace procession we walked behind a marching band despite the sun’s oppression and watched from a hotel Nagasaki’s setting sun, on the church that we had entered, on the war that we had won. Returning then to Saga under cover of the night whose quiet music was a blessing to you who held me tight, where nought is made for one except the prison of your mind and when you search for love you never know what you will find. When you travel half the world to reach your destination your existence feels as fleeting as a train sat in a station, every moment must be savoured, every tear and every smile, all passengers leave the platform through the same one-way turnstile.

Birthdays pass, Christmas comes and goes, And a New Year, more discarded resolutions, perhaps it even snows, Time flies and only Valentines, winters faithful anodyne Lasts until Easter, where reviving nature distracts us from our woes Until Summer lust takes over when love scatters like dust In the autumn wind and sticks only to what soon rusts.

And perhaps a book or two we will exchange Some message filled with painful words and platitudes But they are just the husks of conscious change that obscure the seed from the kernel that remains and leaves love estranged in heartless habitudes weaved around a web of memories that can no longer be renewed.

To age belongs old reveries But youth needs new creation If you seek more than love-antiques name the train and station.