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BUDDHA SMILES

A few days ago I noticed the sound of destruction and the smoke of debris fires beyond the trees up across the road, took a walk over there and found a half dozen men at work demolishing a couple of old cabins and clearing the property, about 500 tsubo, for what they said would be a new house. I asked if I could have the trees they were cutting down, big oak and beech, since they were just burning them there in a big pit (the waste!!!), they said sure. They were glad to be spared the noxious task of burning green wood on wet ground for fixed pay. So at my request they said they'd cut the logs into ca. 80 cm lengths and leave them near the road on Monday. Later, when I went back to explore what the men would be cutting down on the morrow, I came upon a cluster of kuromoji (Japanese spicebush), its light golden buds glowing like secret Buddha smiles in the dusk of the copse; there were five trunks to the cluster, each 1-2 inches in diameter. First I clipped all the smaller branches, then cut the trunks, took them all home and filled the house with that special scent by carving multiple vari-sized acupressure sticks, hiking staffs, toothpicks, skewers, shavings to use for the bath; and arranged branches here and there in vases. The great thing about kuromoji is that the creamy white, splendidly carving wood never seems to lose its fragrance; I've had some bunches of it here in the loft for 5 years or so now, and if I break a twig, there is that perfume, makes Buddha smile like that.