Chokai Mountain at Dewa by Utagawa Hiroshige II, by John Tessitore

Chokai Mountain at Dewa, by Utagawa II Hiroshige (Japan) 1859

Chokai Mountain at Dewa by Utagawa Hiroshige II

He found the float of the world in the line that hikes
the boat sail to the snowy peak, lifts the shore
to the green hills, shimmers the roofs of the village huts
like the wind-rippled surface of the bay
with a thin wash of colour that textures the page.

To see this way is to practice a discipline 
of the mind, a precision as rigorous
as steering a boat through a storm, as stepping back
from confusion to realize that everything
is pigment, that the ocean is Hokusai’s blue,
heavy here, lighter there, but equal in essence
to the salts, bone oil, and insects mashed to make it.

Everything is a massing of colour, a transfer 
of volume, a single flame passed between candles.

To the son-in-law passes the daughter, the style,
the name, even this scene at Dewa, the mountain
looming over the busy village viewed from on high.
Lesser perhaps in every way, always the second
except in this choice, to wake at the break of day
and see the world swell as a billow of cloud.

The sea floods forward to its depths, away from Chokai,
drawing the mirror of the bay from the foothills,
lifting the mists, the intensity of the blue
surging toward us as if we were riding a wave
that curls behind us to darken the sky overhead.

My copy is an out-dated calendar purchased
on a day awash with possibility
from a blond woman in Sag Harbor, purveyor
of Eastern trinkets for spiritual growth,
when the sun was high, the shadows short, the heat
from the road a warm embrace, and I had no doubts
about an inner logic, felt no need to withdraw,
to face a wall, to clear my mind of the mysteries
visible, the low hills like the rolling tide, 
an exhalation of red fire like a fever
over the land, the water in the harbour waiting.

Beneath, behind, within—the paper not negative,
nor is it positive, but essential, a beauty
all its own if you learn to see it, if you check
your human urge to mark every surface, like a dog,
if you refuse to take possession completely.

Two fishermen set out early with a pole and net,
men of Dewa the way trees are trees, rooted
to the ground on wishbone legs, solitary
as the yellow light drifts from the peaks like the mist,
like a wisp of smoke, like the aroma of ayu
on a morning like any other except
that today is not yesterday or tomorrow.

He died at forty-four, the age of indecision
and unexpected pain, also of settling
for the best among bad options, like brushing
a dragon onto tea-cups in order to buy food,
or leaving the master’s daughter for a new wife,
or changing your name to try your hand again
and ignore the peace of a morning at Chokai--
not the Sanzan of Basho but a mountain
that will breathe its fire long after we pass into ash.

John Tessitore

John Tessitore has been a journalist and biographer. He has taught history and literature at colleges around Boston and directed national policy studies on education and civil justice. He serves as Co-Editor Across the Pond for The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press. His poems have appeared in a variety of books and journals. He has published several volumes of poetry, a novella, and hosts a poetry podcast, Be True, available on all major podcast platforms.