FALLING THROUGH LEAVES I feel ~ Like a leaf From the Tree of Life once sapped Now snapped Floating nowhere I know where Blown by a cold wind Not of my making The boughs that once held me Now soughing and aching My heartwood is breaking. I fall ~ Like a leaf From the Tree of Promise once golden Now olden Sucked dry, brown and cracking Drawn down by hard times Into a forest of no rest Where flaming and screaming A future once seeming Infinite Becomes fodder for fungi. I ponder ~ A leaf From the Book of History once supple Now stiffened Whose pages though turned, reveal a past unlearned And a future spurned For fortunes unearned By marauders and murderers. And I wonder ~ As I leaf Through the pages of my life Seeing the bookmarks and notations The exclamations and expectations The marginalia and illustrations, I ask myself, Was I ever the sub...
November 27, 2025 Today’s agenda was same, same, but different. That is, more art, but on the southeastern and northern coasts of Naoshima. We’d booked online at the Hiroshi Sugimoto Gallery, a museum within the Benesse House museum complex devoted to the eponymous photographer Sugimoto, and at the Benesse Art House Project, a multi-site exhibition that takes place in abandoned houses in Honmura, on the northern side of the island and home of Mitsubishi Materials. The gallery was within walking distance of Naoshima Cottage so we set out on a crisp fall morning, the Seto Inland Sea our constant companion to the right. Hiroshi Sugimoto Gallery, Time Corridors Like Benesse House, this gallery is both an art venue and a hotel, designed by Tadao Ando. Photography is permitted inside the gallery. Our entrance ticket included Matcha tea and a sweet, which we enjoyed in the lounge with its view over the grounds and out to the sea. On Sugimoto from the...