The Art of Being Alone: Poems 1952–2009

Clueless

151 Clueless 世間知らず (1993) The Death of My Father My father died at ninety-four years and four months. He went to the barber the day before. Late that night in his bed he emptied all he had inside his belly. At daybreak, summoned by his nurse, I went to him. His face was the Noh mask of an aged man, his false teeth removed, with his lips slightly apart. He was already gone. His face was cold, but his hands and feet were still warm. Nothing came out of his nose, mouth or anus. His body was so clean that it needed no cleansing. Having been told that dying in one’s home would be treated as an unnatural death, I called an ambulance. On the way to the hospital, and even after we got there, he was given oxygen and heart massages. It all seemed senseless. I told them so and asked them to stop. We brought the body home. My son and the son of the woman I was living with were tidying up the room. Three people came from the Medical Inspector’s office. The time of his death on the death certificate was several hours later than the actual time. People began to gather. Condolatory telegrams came pouring in. Baskets of flowers arrived one after another. My separated wife arrived. I quarreled with my woman upstairs. It got busier and busier, and I lost track of what was what. At night a man rushed through the front door, crying as loudly as a child. 152 “The Master has died! He’s dead!” he screamed. Then the guy (he came from Suwa) left, saying “I wonder if there’s still a train running. I’m going home,” still crying “Offerings” arrived from the Emperor and the Empress. The envelope was stamped with Thirty Thousand Yen. “The First Order of the Sacred Treasure” arrived from the Emperor. It contained three medals. The lapel pin looked like the dried-up slice of a small lemon. My father used to rub the dry skin on his legs with sliced lemon. What’s called the Associate Third Order arrived from the Prime Minister . This had nothing else attached, but several direct mail sales offers for display frames for medals and their history also arrived. My father was a handsome man, so he would have looked impressive wearing those medals, I thought. The undertaker told me the best of all funerals is the cannibalistic ritual. I thought my father would have to be made into soup because he was so skinny. * Death with its quiet and swift hands brushed away his life’s every detail in his sleep, but for us who chat with each other through the night in that bit of time before the altar flowers wither there’s no end of silly tales Death is the unknown the unknown has no details that is like poetry both death and poetry tend to sum up life, but the bereaved find joy not in a summary, but in ever-intriguing details * 世間知らず • 1993 Clueless 153 Eulogy for My Father October 16, 1989, at Tōkeiji Temple, Kita-Kamakura The photograph of my father Tetsuzō and mother Takiko placed at the altar is the one my father kept next to him after my mother passed away five years ago. Along with the photograph he kept her ashes with him. As their son, I am not quite sure whether this was out of love for my mother, or simply procrastination. But today, although I know this is unusual, with the permission of the Priest, I have both of their ashes at the altar. My father directed that my mother’s funeral be limited to family members, so the rest of you who knew my mother, please kindly say farewell to her along with my father today. From my vantage point as his son, my father lived his entire life in the way he wanted. While that may have caused him to be somewhat isolated , I believe he happily and luckily lived out his natural life. I thank you for coming together today to send him off. * I was washing a metal ashtray in the bathroom in our old house in Suginami before we remodeled it. My father, in his sixties, wearing a haori over a black kimono, came in and said to me that he made a washing machine out of bricks...