Middle of Nowhere

Some days you just want to ride the train. You want to rest the legs and allow the mind to wander. No maps to suggest a destination. No images either. You don’t want a bullet train on such days. You want the rocking to and fro, the lurching, the sounds that come when steel touches steel.

Just yesterday I learned of Umeroii Kyotonisi Station.

A short walk from Hibari,

it sits back from Shichihommatsu-dori Street such that you don’t notice it unless you’ve been there before.

Having discovered it, I thought I’d visit rather than walk another 20 minutes to Kyoto Station and the Tower.

You can catch the Sagano Line at Umeroii,

and ride it beyond the city - beyond the houses, and businesses, and power lines.

Most people take the Sagano to get off at Saga-Arashiyama and stroll through the Bamboo Grove. On another day I might have done the same. But this morning that wasn’t far enough, so I stayed on while the train emptied.

We went on for quite awhile. What I’d hope would disappear did, giving way to dense forests. Then we stopped, and I got off, assuming we were at a station.

Turns out we were in the middle of the Hozu Gawa River Bridge, one tunnel behind,

one ahead,

and the Hozu Gawa running beneath.

We were indeed at a designated stop - Hozukyō,

and while there wasn’t a station as such,

there was an opportunity to swipe my railway card and pass through.

A narrow road was ahead and after ten minutes or so I was at the Uko Bridge,

at the far end of which a road that was closed

and one that continued.

Ten minutes further,

there was a decision to be made,

an easy one on this day,

and I descended into the Mizuo Gawa narrows,

the river with the same name just below.

It was cool down there,

a welcome relief from the heat of Kyoto’s streets.

I would have walked for miles,

at least I told myself that,

but the path ended at the Hozu Gawa,

its bridge just beyond.

Others had ended their walk there no doubt, as there were steps leading down to the water’s edge,

the Hozu Gawa to the left,

the Mizuo Gawa to the right.

I considered crossing over,

but there was no easy route.

So I found a rock and sat,

an easy decision after all,

It’s good to find such resting places, to stop and listen, and nothing more.

Sometime later, I returned on the same narrow road, and was pleased to find a kindred spirit.

And later still, it was nice to be atop the Hozu Gawa River Bridge again, to look down

and across

at where I’d been.

To listen to the blow of the whistle

as my ride approached.

Yesterday was Walt Whitman’s birthday. He’d be 204 now had he lived a while longer.

As the engineer set the brake,

I thought of Walt and how he would have invited others to stop with him this day, were he looking down from the Hozu Gawa River Bridge.

Stop this day and night with me,

and you shall possess the origin of all poems,

you shall possess

the good of the earth and sun,

there are millions of suns left,

you shall no longer take things

at second or third hand,

nor look through the eyes of the dead,

nor feed on the spectres in books,

you shall not look through my eyes either,

nor take things from me,

you shall listen to all sides

and filter them for yourself.