pine-stone steps: the forest shrine in hakuba

A stone staircase rises from the wooden tori
skinny and winding like in an old Victorian home.
Polished cedar floors are forest dirt
the vibrant rugs: patches of wet green moss -
baby tears in the front yard of my childhood home.
The walls are pine
whose wrinkled bark can tell a thousand stories
in the spacious living room.

There is that clear
champagne fizz feeling.
This is a holy place, a quiet-tree place
and we step lightly
for this is where
some spirits live.

At the top there is a wooden shrine and there is a young pine,
thin and fresh and in no hurry to grow tall but without fear of its future.
Thick sponge moss
moist and rich like the finest earth water
blankets the ground
and a few brown mushrooms
have grown to half its height.

I kneel and breathe in the little tree.

Then we turn
and begin walking down
the stone steps
our noses wet from the clear cold.
We watch our feet
so as not to stumble
over a tree’s root -
a rug folded up on one end.