poetry thursday*

a human experience

thousands of little suns
set by hundreds of hands
fingers and thumbs
bringing the sky
to the earth
in celebration of being beings
a path weaves
through the melting wax
and chanting cicadas
and we follow, awe-struck
the august wind pervades
like dragon's breath
and in the middle of this
crafted universe,
young girls spin like planets
their robes of flowers
orbiting around them,
never touching the ground

*this week's poetry thursday's prompt was to use an image that is inspiring. in my archives i found this image taken at a recently created tradition in nara, japan (where we lived) called tokae which means, essentially, light flower gathering. it is a simple concept but has a tremendous impact. i like the effort put into this event that coincides with obon, the midsummer holiday when the dead come to pay a visit and their families greet them with bonfires and lanterns (i'm simplifying it here). to me it is inspirational because this new tradition has no real rationality (religion-wise) but is done, as one of my former students said, "just because". many hands coming together to create beauty for beauty's sake. how human.