EYE OF LIGHT

Among the many reasons for living in the naturally rich countryside are the continuous surprises of beauty it brings out for show when you least expect them.

This morning I was anticipating another chill but clear day; instead when I woke up and looked out the deck was covered with snow and the snow was still falling-- no motorcycling down to the station, have to go by 4-wheel drive.

So not much later I was steering down through the entire white, the tall mountain bamboos arching snow-laden over the roadway, when all at once I saw where Hokusai got the ocean waves design for his famed Mt. Fuji woodcut: there they were, ocean waves in the snow on the leaves of the bending bamboo, that he could copy at his leisure, with some colory tweaking for waterness!

Then turning a bend in the road in the thick part of the woods where the road opens out to a view of the Lake, the vista was all one silver thickness of snow: no lake, no sky; but there at one point was a line of burgeoning light that as we slowly descended began to grow into the form of an eye, an eye of pure, soft brightness that was the sun coming over the far mountains and reflecting off the still invisible lake: a skyful of softly falling snow with an eye of light at its heart.

Took that vision with me on the train.