Five Ekphrastic Tankas from the Floating World: the Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints of Utagawa Hiroshige, by Martin Malone

Hakone: Traveling with Pine Torches in the Night, by Utagawa Hiroshige (Japan) 1848 (11th station of 53 Stations of the Tokaido)

           
Nocturnal Journey Near Hakone 

​Pine bough sky islands
float above Hakone Pass.
Wind twisted brown trunks
tether sky and rock paved path.
Palanquined daimyo drowses.

Men poling boats past a bank with willows, by Utagawa Hiroshige (Japan) c. 1834-42 (from The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaido Road)

Men Poling Boats Past a Bank with Willows

​Before the moon’s orb
the wistfulness of willows.
Men poling their boats.
The setting sun’s salmon sky.
To be home before the dark.

Suruga Province The Pine Grove at Miho, by Utagawa Hiroshige (Japan) 1853 (Suruga, from the series Famous Places in the Sixty-odd Provinces)

The Pine Beach at Miho

Sails’ white triangles
process across the blue bay.
Mount Fuji rises
behind the low green mountains.
Pine treed beaches wade bayward.

Fireworks at Ryogoku, by Utagawa Hiroshige (Japan) 1858. (No. 98 from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo)

Fireworks Over Ryogoku Bridge 

Watchers in their boats
crane to see exploding stars.
Firework camellias
above Ryogoku’s bridge.
as dark blue night glows orange.

A Snowy Gorge, by Utagawa Hiroshige (Japan) 1843-44

A Snowy Gorge

A jade cataract
sluices eons’ ancient rock.
Burdened traveler
walks the gorge-spanning log bridge.
Snow-clad cliffs embrace poled boats.

Martin Malone

Martin Malone’s chapbook, Simple Gifts, was published in 2014.  His poems have appeared in a number of little magazines, including Seminary Ridge Review, Pennsylvania Bards Against Hunger, Backbone Mountain Review (Poem of the Year 2022), CentraLit, and The Maryland Literary Review and are forthcoming in Northern Appalachia Review. He is an organizer of Gettysburg’s First Friday Poetry Series.  He lives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.