Dean Okamura

Japan 

arrow standing in stone

 

There are times 

I think about Japan, 

not the land my ancestors left, 

but the one I've inherited 

through woodblock waves, 

silk kimonos flowing like water, 

the moonlit intrigue of Genji's whispers, 

and Shoguns framed in Hollywood lights. 

It's beautiful, isn't it? 

This polished Japan, 

wrapped in lacquer and cherry blossoms, 

sold to the world on silver screens 

and flat screens. 

It's all I had, for so long, 

a heritage conjured 

from myths exported 

to satisfy world delights. 

But now I think of my ancestors, 

poor farmers in threadbare robes, 

backs bent over rice fields, 

their lives a cycle of mud and debt. 

They bowed not to honor 

but to survive, 

broken stones in winter. 

This was the Japan they left, 

A place no one would film, 

A story no one would buy. 

So I wonder, 

Which is the real Japan? 

Which is mine? 

**** 

There is a Japanese proverb: 

石に立つ矢

an arrow standing in stone 

… which refers to a tale of a hunter whose arrow landed upright on a rock. It means that even what seems impossible can sometimes come true.