Bamboo Yards at KyōbashiAuthor(s): Margaret GibsonSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Fall, 2002), p. 27Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20155101 .

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Bamboo Yards at Ky?bashi

Along the great wooden bridge at Ky?bashi the pilgrims straggle home

footsore, quiet now, and sleepy

The city's cache of bamboo

is sufficient, their prayers have been confident

The future is assured

They are alive

They are safe, even happy

The moon rises without comment

over the steep ramparts and spires

of bundled bamboo

For the laborer below, moonlight is only more light to work by

He poles his barge along the bright river

What he thinks, no one asks

What he thinks falls away as smoothly

as the runnel of river water

that slides down the pole he lifts

holds aloft for a moment

then sinks into the shining river

(Ando Hiroshige, woodblock print from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo)

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