Tuesday 27th, I believe. Back in Sendai Mediacentre after 3 incredible days in and around Matsushima Bay. Oh such a relief to see trees, water, an open sky! I would love to post you pictures, but can`t do that, so you`ll have to check my website (www.ralphhoyte.net) some time after I return. Immensely fat Japanese schoolgirl in the normal short, plaid flouncy skirt just waddled past. I would love to send you some pictures of Japanese women and what they wear, Margareta, would be so interesting to compare your Bosnian princesses with the Japanese! Some Japanese women are absoloutely breathtaking )have to break off!)mmmｋｊｈ ahh back on, I smiled at the desk girl and she gave me another 30 min.

I come through the main gate (actually a roofed gate like in .. oh dancing dragons, smarmy tiger film, you know). The entrance to Zuiganji, the oldest Zen temple in Tohoku, lies 200 metres straight up a cedar-lined path. I have done this before, I have walked up the path to the Zen Temple. Cedars line the route, dead straight, moss under them. Enter the temple gate - the temple is, of course, `offset` to the left. Why `of course`? Because Zen, life, is offset. Because humans dance to the left. Because life taps you on the left shoulder and says, `look!`. I have done this before. I put a 1000 yen note in the entrance machine and get 300 back. So it costs about 3.50 entry. The temple lies just like I remember it. I have never been here before. I have been here before. The temple lies just where it should, no, just where it has to, no, it just lies. There is no other place it could be. The Japanese have this incredible sense of `THIS!` and nothing else. When the archer releases the arrow, it is already in the target. There is no other place it could be. There is no other place Zuiganji could be, other than here, right in front of me. I have been here before. I take off my boots, place then in the wooden rack in front of the main bit and go up the steps onto the verandah. The Japanese are absolute masters of WOOD, of SPACE, of PROPORTION, of ahhhh.... It`s raining lightly, a taifun curling round in the Inland Sea, so the YH warden tells me, dragging rain alongside it. I pause at the corner, look out onto the hips of the slope behind and to the side. Rain drips lightly of the eaves of the roof into the moss. I know why I`ve come 10,000 miles: to hear rain drip into moss from the eaves of Zuiganji.

10,000 miles is not too far
to hear rain dripping into moss
at Zuiganji

The roof, the roof! The roof curves, overhangs by a good 4 metres. The one I`m looking at is excessively complicated. The guide says that the add-on to my left `was built for a visit of the lord` - presumably Date Masamune, the feudal lord around here. It was built in 3`s (each section offset (!) from each other, so, again, things cannot be approached directly, you frame what is going to be, hide each section so a new frame opens out when you round the corner.

Now, the roof: the descending line is not straight, but subtly curved. The tiles are also curved, like a cylinder cut in half. The ends of the cylinders at the edges are then stopped with round chrysanthemum shapes. Because of the offset rule of three pertaining on the add-on structure, the roof builders have to combine the incredibly complicated shape into that below. These guys didn`t think in 3 dimensions but in 3-to-the-n! I follow the verandah round to the back, the female swell of the mossy banks, trained maples, another structure behind. The eye is lead by the sense of rightness. In a space round the back were laid `the bodies of 36 samurai who folowed their lord into the next world` on his death. Date Masamune squats on his stool in full samurai dress, one eye baleful, the other half-closed, hands on knees in commanding pose, sword in right hand. His helmet has a golden crescent - offset (of course!), so one side is longer than the other. Do not forget that`perfect` in Japan means `as it is`. Perfection is offset. I realise later that the golden crescent is, of course, the sickle moon.

That night, and the following, I dream consecutive dreams of women. I go to sleep, dream of one woman, wake up, write poetry for 2 hours, go back to sleep, take up the dream where it left off, dream of another woman. This goes on for two nights. Why? Then I remember: Basho, landing atOjima Beach, Matsushima, writes: `alighting at Ojima Beach, one is almost overcome by the sense of intense feminine beauty in a shining world`.

Sands of Nobiru Beach
I write the name of every woman I love


The shadow of my bunk
measures the slow hours of night;
the voice of the sea-goddess beckons from the waves:
come drown in my body!

Island dotted after island;
piggy-backed, mother-baby, father,
grandfather. Careless goddess-strewn islands
fertilized by sea-god sperm. Red pines ache to
connect heaven and earth. The ancients have left messages.
Oh Matsushima!

Not to forget my baleful friend Date Masamune:

Godaido, feudal lord Date Masamune`s
worship hall on the island of Godaidoji (him of the `16
wives`). `Only open to the public once every 33 years ...
the nexttime one can expect to view the interior
will be in 2006.` Don`t go there.