SEA-SIGHT: DAY TWO
northward the honshu coastline in an effort to honour the landscape with poetry.
through the landscape of industry and brutal, forced compromise we arrive at kashima port, which juts out perpendicular from the steam-stacks. the false glory of this age imprints further upon me, as does its deep, almost inhuman, sadnesses. it is brittle orange of rust in the mouth. rancid rubber streaking the steel. in walking the long planked wood between men and women with lines and poles, hot tea in thermoses and scuttling children, I find a reprieve of spare space and am comforted that there is, at least, the continuation of this ancient human action—to take what the land has to give. to sustain oneself with it. to repeat this echoing motion of patience, hope, fulfillment, and gratitude. in the thin office of the port there is a photo, pressed under plasticine, of what this place had looked like in the aftermath of 3/11. the wooden conformations broken like toothpicks. we ask the officer about it. in a gruff voice, he says nothing specific, then turns his attention to two children who are placing a fistful of candy in front of the register.
the observatory at onoshiosaihamanasu has a photo of flowers pressed into its midsection. inside we glimpse the wideness of this city’s edges, and at the fading light which has already borne fruit-shades so early in the day. they have built blunt arrows of land to slow down the water’s unceasing persistence to wear away. there is a map of the very old days, in which homes are denoted with small peaks in black, and the ocean in a rigid, aged, blue. there are only three layers: the forest, the residences, and the ocean. nothing had yet been hollowed out, nothing emptied.
we cut through a crumbling house—pots are sat in the outdoor sink, socks are hanging on the line, the paper of the door is yellowed but sustaining—towards the statue of a woman who is setting free a bird. hamanasu no sei. I want to know her name, but as with most women in history who are stoically at the mercy of fate, she does not have one. the smooth contours of her face reveals nothing, only the hem of her skirt retains some wildness of life, the green solidness of it waving against the wind of its time. the tide is violent. it crashes up against the barricades in foaming gasps. the shore is like a kaleidoscope crunching under our steps. shell-shard, glass-flakes, pebbles. the shell is a comfort to hold. it settles into the palm of your hand, always as if having just been washed clean. the curves upon its surface echoing tidewater, the memory of the life it had once contained still seared into its very shape. its quiet apprehension of halves.
statues are spirits at the behest of their substance. any exquisite detail is as due to the elucidations of the innate material composition as it is to the deft hand of the artist. this representation of a woman, this representation of a bird, rendered in this impartially greenish stone—engrained in the matters of its making are the small fingers of the sea.
