Mt. Hakodate

To any of those poor souls who follow this blog, I apologize for my sporadic posting. I am swamped more than I can say; after I finish the day’s homework, which can include essays and speeches on top of normal grammar work, I barely have enough energy to curl up and read ten pages of “A Tale of Two Cities” before bed. I feel my written work is improving, and my spoken Japanese, though not becoming any easier, seems to be getting smoother and less hesitant. It’s an encouraging feeling.
Anywho, I have had the time to write something, after I went and saw the view of the city from Mt. Hakodate. It has a little bit of the thoughts that have been swirling around in my head since I've gotten here. It's not very good. I apologize in advance.

The View from Mt. Hakodate

Tell me, Kami-sama, where you are in this town
This town of twenty eight ten-thousands people confused?
Are you on the hill of eighty thousand emissaries,
Or on the pier with the monument to when the Wajin first came?

Are you Kami-sama, as the Wajin call you
Or just Kami as when the they write that
Hajime-ni, Kami ga Ten to Chi wo tsukutta,
That “In the beginning, Kami made heaven and the earth”

Why in this town, this town on the sea
Aren’t you the Kami-sama that you are elsewhere?
When did you decide that the trees, mountains, rivers
Did not suit you like they did elsewhere?

Do you not know, Kami-sama,
The trials that these people have endured
To even have a glimpse of you
In the forms you have shown before?

Are you not that Kami-sama who defied your own nature
When you said Tenjō Tenge, Yuiga Dokuson
The Wajin pronunciation of the Chinese proverb
Translated from the Sanskrit transcriptions of an Indian prince
Who defied all Kami-sama?

What Kami-Sama are you
Who builds temples and churches to yourself
For every interpretation, every inclination
Every obfuscation of your very being

What Kami-Sama are you
Whose image is a glyph
Stamped onto the Shinto Jinja
And crossed on the steeples of churches?

Tell me what to call you, Kami-sama!
Hashem, like I call you at home,
Or G-d, as we all say to each-other,
To show that we are like them, and not like ourselves?

It seems like they did a pretty good job
Telling us how to be like them,
Because we are them now,
And rarely like ourselves.

Such are the thoughts of Shakushain’s children
Who, when the Wajin killed him to end his revolution,
Stopped calling you Kamai,
And started calling you Kami-sama

How do I pray to you, Kami-sama?
Do I throw a coin, bow, and clap,
Or kneel and make the sign of the cross,
Or string a bow and allow myself to follow
The arrow to enlightenment?

How do I worship you, Kami-sama?
Can I sway and say Boruch atah Adonoi eloheinu melech ha’olam
If there’s nowhere to say it
On the slope of eighty thousand emissaries?

Do you love me any less, Kami-sama
If I come from a smaller tribe
One that hasn’t lived on these shores
Except in times of great hardship?

How do I find you, Kami-sama?
Do I don a straw hat, and embark on a pilgrimage to your shrines?
Do I take black robes, and wooden rosary, and seek peace in incense?
Do I take care of your churches, give tours to children, sell candles and cards?

Why did you choose this town, Kami-sama,
To make a show of yourself,
A spectacle of yourself,
Like a catalog of secrets accidentally published?

What good does it do to have
All the children yearn to go to the best catholic school
And all the homes to have the bible
When no one really knows what religion is at all?

Where were you, Kami-sama
When I left the moon-lit mountain top,
Overlooking the slope of eighty thousand drunk and stumbling emissaries,
And couldn’t find my way through the trees that you left to seek another home?