This is how I would start my travelogue...
But alas, these words were already written, centuries earlier, by the poet Matsuo Basho, in his masterpiece "The Narrow Road in the Deep North".
Almost a week had gone by since I came back from Kanazawa. How would I chronicle such a trip then?
"The passing days and months are eternal travellers in time. The years that come and go are travellers too. Life itself is a journey; and as for those who spend their days upon the waters in ships and those who grow old leading horses, their very home is the open road. And some poets of old there were who died while travelling.
There came a day when the clouds drifting along with the wind aroused a wanderlust in me, and I set off on a journey to roam along the seashores. I returned to my hut on the riverbank last autumn, and by the time I had swept away the cobwebs, the year was over.
But when spring came with its misty skies, the god of temptation possessed me with a longing to pass the Barrier of Shirakawa, and road gods beckoned, and I could not set my mind to anything. So I mended my breeches, put new cords on my hat, and as I burned moxa on my knees to make them strong, I was already dreaming of the moon over Matsushima.
I sold my home and moved into Sampû’s guest house, but before I left my cottage I composed a verse and inscribed it on a poem strip which I hung upon a pillar:
This rude hermit cell
Will be different now, knowing Dolls’
Festival as well."
But alas, these words were already written, centuries earlier, by the poet Matsuo Basho, in his masterpiece "The Narrow Road in the Deep North".
Almost a week had gone by since I came back from Kanazawa. How would I chronicle such a trip then?
