WINTER DREAMS
The Solitary Man Sei Shōnagon writes in her pillow book that when she begins to settle into her cell in a temple which she has travelled to with friends for several days of prayer she notices that the man in the cell next to hers is lying prostrate on the ground, praying inaudibly. She expects him to rise soon, but he continues thus for hours. She calls him
the solitary man. ‘I was very moved,’ she writes. When he does get up, he rests, then says his devotions, but so quietly that she cannot make out what the words are. Does she relate to him? She doesn’t say. Do I? This poem is the answer.
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING February 2024 Celebrating 14th Anniversary
