broadcast from the village loudspeakers, far away, like a scratchy 1940s radio. a language for bees or aliens. the nashi in the village orchards are coming into their sweetness. half the farmers are retired or dead. long lives swallowed by the soil.
there’s no war in the forest, just trees disordered in their own way, steep hills, sculpted terraces. old, old stone walls bedded in volcanic loam. the echo of chisels. weaponry would be inhuman.
I tend these woods like the man before me, subtracting myself from inoshishi trails, sightlines the doves fly through. the forest breathes all the time. shifting. familiar, yet ever-distant.
cicada susurrus
an alphabet of evening
bells