Sounds of Kyoto

               i
They intensify
the courtyard’s evening chill,
the dragon flutes,
soaring with other woodwinds
through variations of shrill.

               ii
Is it the bronze
or simply the emptiness
of the bonshō
that generates the deep tone
of its reverberations?

               iii
The timing is out
and the notes are flat, but what
sweet music they make,
the windchime’s little sawn lengths
of bamboo bumped by breezes.

               iv
At the Shinto shrine
the windblown windbells are like
a skulk of foxes—
their paper tails are whipping,
their iron tongues are yipping.

               v
And to depict
the slow shakuhachi note,
the maple tree
lets loose a single red leaf
to dither down the still air.

               vi
It’s mesmerising
to watch the taiko drummers,
it’s a kind of thrill,
how they synchronise their striking
like martial artists in drill.