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A Monk's Journey
courtesan and monk, Outside, apple blossoms glow in the dusk. She lies on her side, head propped up on a pillow, her eyes telling me that something important is coming, my eyes taking in the candlelight on her breasts. "I need to know more about you," she says. “Do you mean about being a monk?” "Yes, because right now you don't seem very much like a monk." She glances at my hand wandering slowly along the curve of her hip. "You're thinking about Christian monks, the ones who lived in dank cells, ate lentils and hard bread; the ones who whipped themselves. Think instead about Bashō, the Japanese monk who traveled extensively, shared his poetry with peasants and samurai nobles, loved flowers, enjoyed the company of women. Think more of a European troubadour with haiku as his song – but in this case, an older guy, with gray hair."
I'm a wanderer "Does this mean that I'm just someone who happens to sleep with you?" "No, but I've been a partner all of my life and for now I need not to be.” "So what am I?" she asks. "I don't know how to tell my friends whatever it is we're doing. It feels like more than dating or having sex and it’s not friendship because I don’t sleep with my friends."
how reluctantly "Can’t we simply enjoy what we have,” I reply. "I'm reluctant to give up the feel of your skin against mine, but I'll have to think about this." She pecks a kiss, dresses and leaves. A week later her note arrives: "I have such good memories of our moments together. It's a gift to desire and be desired, but we need such different things.”
winter seclusion –
Ray Rasmussen, Simply Haiku, 6:4, Winter 2008.
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