I don’t know whether Basil Bunting was one of the great poets or one the great eccentrics of the 20th century. But I love his “Chomei at Toyama.”
Chomei, who was born in 1154, abandoned life in the big city and built a hut on a mountain where he lived as a hermit. He wrote a prose account.
Bunting translated as Pound did. So to say it’s “loose” probably doesn’t cover it.
Chomei describes terrible times: natural disasters and gangsters on the streets and in government. He gives up and builds his tiny house.
I have filled the frames with clay,
set hinges at the corners;
easy to take it down and carry it away
when I get bored with this place.
Two barrowloads of junk
and the cost of a man to shove the barrow,
no trouble at all.
He outlines a life worthy of Thoreau at Walden. He goes to the summit of the mountain and looks out over Kyoto:
a very economical way of enjoying yourself.
He has his books and mandolin. The gamekeeper’s son, 16, comes by for company.
He came planning to stay a month. Five years later, moss grows on the roof.
I know myself and mankind.
• Source: The poem is here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/20166/chomei-at-toyama
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