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Louisa Hooper

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Okubo Temple

We’re stamping back the silence
of the trees that stand
beyond our yellow discs of torchlight,
shouldering darkness.

Japanese ghosts are different from mine,
they have no feet,
or so they tell me as we climb
the road to Okubo on New Year’s Eve.

The road curves on to midnight
where the temple lions wait high
on the gateposts, stone manes curling,
stone eyes blank as fate to our arrival;

where round the temple braziers we’ll jostle,
toasting squid, teeth tearing
at the tough, dried flesh. Try some,
they’ll say, it’s lucky,
brings health and happiness.

And if beyond the firelight
I glimpse the thickening horde
of ancestors, with hungry open mouths,
I’ll have no fear,

knowing my ghosts are elsewhere,
treading other paths on ghostly feet.


 

Louisa Hooper spent two years teaching English
in Japan. She now lives and works in London.

Page(s) 52

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