A.A. Marcoff
Thomas Edison
& the light of the mountain
light is a state of mind, and what’s a bamboo grove but a history of time? Edison sent men all over the world to find the right material for his filament: they found it on a holy mountain in Japan, at the Iwashimizu Hachimangu Shrine, near Kyoto, in a nearby bamboo grove: and from its bamboo—the creation of a filament—the creation of light: a light to shine in the darkness of the world, flowering from the bulb that is imagination and matter and finally a chrysalis, light that becomes the butterfly of new technology, floating on the wind, light to light up every corner of our night like a white star, and to generate an inner sun: the floating world is a lantern floating on atmosphere & dreams: and where has the miracle gone? where the flame? they’ve gone to those mines of psychology and stone, that underground mystery, where miners search for minerals, the diamond light of being itself:
laying down at night
in old Kyoto
it is as though
I were sleeping
on dreams
About the Author
A.A. Marcoff is an Anglo-Russian poet who has lived in Africa, Iran, France and Japan. He writes haiku, tanka, tanka-prose and mainstream poetry, and lives near the beautiful River Mole in England.