Self is still reading Basho’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
In the poem below, Basho describes entering the province of Kaga:
I walked into the fumes
Of early-ripening rice,
On the right below me
The waters of the Angry Sea.
* * *
The poem suddenly reminds self of her dystopian short story “The Freeze,” which Bluestem Magazine published last year. Sometime while Obama is President, the Russians do something that shuts the whole world down.
Everyone starts dying. A woman decides to walk out of San Francisco and head south. To make sure she doesn’t lose her way, she decides to walk Highway 1, always making sure that the ocean is to her right. She meets a band of teen-agers.
The story begins with the woman chanting the following:
Redwood, Oak, Laurel, Manzanita, Pine.
Redwood, Oak, Laurel, Manzanita, Pine.
Redwood, Oak, Laurel, Manzanita, Pine.
And darn if self hasn’t just decided that the story ended much too soon. She has to continue, if only so she can figure out for herself what happens to the woman and her teen-age companions. She’s thinking: sequel.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 