Intermittent Poetry Attack! "The Emperor of Tsukayama Park" by Catherynne M. Valente

I chose this poem by Catherynne M. Valente (yuki_onna around these parts) because of how closely I can identify with it. Anyone, I imagine, who's lived in another country, turned their tongue to learning another language, and listened with an unschooled ear can feel the depth of connection and shame illuminated through her words:

The Emperor of Tsukuyama Park
by
Catherynne M. Valente

When first the word was spoken, I heard:
Tsuki-yama -- Lord Moon.
And for me, the moon settled onto a dais, with
sixteen-pointed chrysanthemums in his phosphor-hands,
topknot oiled with seaweed and orange,
his hakama fringed in silver worms
which wove on and on,
flooding the nightingale-floor with silk.

The folds of his sleeves creased blue and black
in signet-shadows, descending like stairs to me,
in a poor, threadbare yukata,
my sallow Western skin protruding,
forehead pressed to his white tatami.
For me, the moon extended a branch of heavy plums
and with well-water eyes forgave my ignorance of protocol,
my botched obi, my hair unpinned and ragged.

When winter came to Tsukayama Park,
it seemed to me that the strange-limbed tigers
of his wall-hangings
rumbled like clouds, and I was permitted to watch
the sparrows spiral up to his ashen ear. Under his cratered arms,
I knelt, and whispered tears into the hiragana of my palm-lines,
obscuring the text with salt and snow.

For him, I was always penitent.
I did not question his rule over the cherry trees, the green tide,
the steam of tea in a glazed cup. I allowed him to stifle
my breath in twelve layers of white silk, to paint me a new mouth,
to fold back my hair in beryl combs
that cut my scalp with piscine teeth. For him, I pressed out my pride,
flat as a river, and bowed my face to the floor.

When summer came to Tsukayama Park
it seemed to me that his voice was the thrust-cry of cicadas,
that the wind beat drums of star-hide, that I had
learnt the angle of the closed mouth
well enough to pass for one of his own.

But in the midst of my prostrations, my rain-hymns,
the steeping of my braids in inkwells,
I heard a woman laugh at me.
She said that the word was
Tsukayama -- top of the hill -- nothing more.
And for me, the moon was excised from the sky.

I had no grace left but my face flattened into sun-cracked dirt,
no patron but the feet of a false moon,
evaporated into plain grass and a stone stair.

My kimono dissolved to water,
and the sparrows turned in shame
from my nakedness.

© 2005-2006 Catherynne M. Valente

You can find this poem in her Apocrypha collection.

I'd also like to show you the way to another poem of hers, published at the Pedestal Magazine: Suzuri. This poetic vignette captures one of my favorite Japanese holidays: Tanabata (or Hoshi-Matsuri, the Star-Festival).