Ise

We stood among inquisitive, mystified people
looking through the transparent silk curtain
covering the entrance to the fenced enclosure,
as near as you may peer at the inner precinct
of Japan’s highly venerated Geku Outer Shrine
protected by four ranks of tall wooden walls,
unpainted because no building in the successive
courtyards is touched by preservatives, since
all structures are replaced every twenty years,
their cypress and cedar surfaces finished to

a velvet smoothness by expert craftsmen —
there being alternate sites, side by side,
one in use and the other an empty expanse
of marbled stones from a pristine river —
­and nobody enters either sanctified ground
except Shinto priests, purified workers or
exalted emissaries of The Imperial Family,
although I saw a crow and some butterflies
allowing themselves unrestricted access,
and when I remarked on a cluster of weeds
and fir sprouts growing out of a moist spot

on a gabled roof of reeds and thatched grass,
our erudite guide replied, “Wild things are
always honored here as natural ambassadors
and divine messengers coming from the gods.”