Marietta McGregor

Shirakawa-go

Late autumn. Ripe orange kaki glow like festive lanterns on leafless trees. Windflowers have lost their last petals to brisk gusts, leaving only fast-fading golden centres. Alongside the now-muddy path to the river, susuki wave head-high feathery plumes soft as white squirrels’ tails. Cut logs pile up under verandah overhangs and mosses creep gremlin-green along roof slopes. Straw sandals slide onto shelves hidden behind cedar panels. Through the pitched thatch roofs of wooden village houses, the mountains sing a colder song. Little glass luck bells suspended in doorways ting fairy notes carved in ice. Candles gutter and smoke. Around the walls firelight dances with its shadows. Soon it must snow.

in an attic
nightingale boards
singing softly
only in winter dreams 
will her lover come

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About the Author

Marietta McGregor is a former science writer from Canberra, Australia. Her haiku, haibun, and haiga appear in international journals and anthologies and on Japanese television.