Nanao

Last night it snowed more heavily, falling past the porch lamp

soft as swan’s feathers while we sat with him. His essence

might be gone or only going, but Nanao’s shell was still here,

lying underneath a blanket. Listening to us, maybe, those he

loved in life, drink sake, read the prayers and reminisce. We’d put

his guru’s picture on the shelf above him, and Gary’s book

beside him on the floor for poems. A necessary ritual; a comfort

too, before the harder work of the morning came.

Now twelve of us take turns to heave Nanao’s coffin

up a mountain path in brittle winter light. A route we walked

so often to his favourite spot, now tricky: his weight,

versus last night’s snow. It’s frozen, like Nanao’s

body was. And Steven says he fears he’ll drop his end,

breath rising from his mouth like kindling smoke. Cold

stiffens lips, burns skin and stings the eyes. I’m lucky,

I have Nanao’s woolly hat. I told him that I liked it once,

and off it came, setting free that mass of wild white hair

to fall around his shoulders like river rapids.

His shell will burn soon, when we reach the place. So much

useless bone and muscle, just ash blowing on the mountain wind.

We’ll chant the Prajnaparamita Sutra: gone, gone, what an

awakening! Then I’ll give hairless Miyazawa Nanao’s hat.

He’s been silent ever since we found the body. He came bald-headed

to the house last night, defying cold in protest at his teacher’s

death. But Nanao was laughing at the moon that morning,

like Maitreya, only with a beard of snow. What happened sparked

in him a child’s pleasure. We must assume that it was marvellous.

If You Talk About Me

If you talk about me when I die,

make sure you mention what a fool I was.

Say how weak of character

I was when I was under pressure.

If you start being sentimental, say,

“My god, that man was bloody clumsy!

I didn’t let him touch my glassware.

It would all be on the floor in bits.”

If you talk about me when I die,

say lager made my tongue sarcastic;

and don’t forget that I would fart for England

whenever I ate vegetables.

When I die, and I might well one day,

tell everybody how much salesmen

in mobile phone shops frightened me.

When I die, and if you talk about me,

tell your victim that my mum’s approval

was all I wanted - and the Nobel Prize.

Tell him or her I squandered more potential

than anybody has a right to have;

that the arrogance of insecurity

and pure laziness would stop me writing poems

for months, and one time for a year.

If he or she has never heard of me

that’s why; but do say I was nice;

and mention I could make a pasta bake

with cheese that was half-edible.

I’d rather not be rubbished totally

when my ashes float off down the river;

but canonise me, and I will hunt you down

and haunt you. That was not the man.

© Bruce Hodder

Bruce Hodder lives in Northampton, England. He is the editor of the online poetry magazine,The Beatnik (http://whollycommunion.blogspot.com). His own poetry has been published in Outlaw, Durable Goods, Poetry Cornwall, Basho's Road and the Crossroads Press anthology Other Voices.