Writing Fukushima #1 A pilgrim to the flowering cherries of Fukushima reports they're standing f

A pilgrim among

the blossoms, as if pursuing

as if pursued

(ou yō ni owaruru yō ni hana-angya)

※hana-angya: In haiku (and tanka as well), when the word hana, "flower" is used alone, it always means the flower of the blossoming cherry tree. Angya means a journey or a pilgrimage, thus hana-angya, "flower pilgrimage," a journey from place to place in search of cherry blossoms.

"It's mid-April, so they must be flowering somewhere." That was the official reply to my inquiry about the flowering cherry trees. In Fukushima, due to the diverse climate, the cherry blossom front meanders here and there, lengthening the season of flowering compared to other parts of Japan.

Heeding some advice, I began from Koriyama. There the cherry trees that line the paths of Kaiseizan Park awaited me in full bloom. They are very old, these trees, for they were planted more than a century ago, when the Asaka Plain was first brought under cultivation.

In full bloom

at their very peak, not a

single petal fallen

(saki-michite koboruru hana mo nakarikeri)

By Takahama Kyoshi

This famous haiku depicts that climactic moment when the cherry blossoms are fully open but have yet to shed a single petal on the earth. As I walked through the park in the moonlit night, it came unbidden to my lips, and I saw in the way the thick tree trunks divided and twisted the mark of the many years of wind and snow they had endured.

The next morning I visited the giant cherry tree called the Miharu Takizakura, or the Waterfall Cherry Tree of Miharu. The entire body of this ancient tree was clad in scarlet buds, and those on the tips of the upmost branches and the earth-close ones were just beginning to open. Before I realized what was happening, a human wall formed around it, built not only of light-hearted blossom viewers but also diligent artists and photographers.

The town of Miharu has a number of other weeping cherry trees besides the Waterfall Cherry Tree. They say that when Miharu was a feudal domain people made a conscious effort to plant such trees, and in this way Miharu came to possess its distinctive beautiful landscapes, with weeping cherry trees ultimately coming to be a symbol of the domain itself.

Touching sky, touching

earth, the Cascading Cherry breaks

into smiling bud

(ten ni fure chi ni fure emau takizakura)

News came that the flowers at Yonomori Park* were at their best so I headed straight to the Hamadori region. The cherry tree tunnel, about two and a half kilometers long, used to be one of the glories of the town of Tomioka. At present about 300 meters of a Restricted Residence Zone have been opened for cherry blossom viewing there. At first glance it seems to be an everyday town, but then one notices that all the houses are empty and the only sound comes from the voices of decontamination workers. The people who were born and grew up here of course loved the flowers, and there were quite a number who voluntarily chose to live here too. As I strolled through the tunnel under the scattering blossoms, a shimmering haze appeared at the end of the path, where entrance was forbidden. As one approaches, the mirage recedes, and so another name for it is nigemizu, "fleeing water." It came to me that the battle with radioactivity was like "fleeing water": the closer one gets the farther victory recedes.

At the end of my pilgrimage to the cherry blossoms, I visited Hanamiyama, or Flower Viewing Mountain, in Fukushima City. Its owner, Mr. Abe Ichiro, who I got to know last year, died that September, so this is the first spring that the mountain welcomed without him. "Everything on the mountain was left by my father. He loved it all," said his son Kazuo. The flowers which Mr. Abe devoted his lifetime to nurturing bloomed beautifully again this year, giving joy and consolation to those who visited them. Mr. Abe's family and the flowers themselves will carry on his good work.

"Nature is truly admirable. . . . The flowers blossom just when they should. They do what they are meant to do regardless of whether or not they are praised and when they're done, silently go away." The Zen priest Miyazaki Ekiho's words came back as if they had been made for the cherry trees of Fukushima, now bravely come back into bloom after the rigors of the long winter. Single cherry trees, weeping cherry trees, cherry tree tunnels, beflowered mountains — all the flowering cherry trees were standing firm, blooming in so many different places. Gazing at the lingering snow of early spring on Mt. Azuma from the window of the train, I said good-bye to Fukushima of the Flowers.

The next day, the media carried a story about a couple who had their wedding photograph taken beneath the cherry trees of Yonomori. These two young people were no mirage. They stood there proudly, reflecting the spring sunlight, bearing Fukushima's future in their hearts.

* Yonomori Park is located 6 kilometers from Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, and due to the nuclear accident that occurred on March 11 2011 at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake, it was at first designated a Restricted zone. At present it is designated a Difficult-to-return zone and entrance is forbidden.

Note: Because the cherry blossoms are in flower so briefly, they are closely related to the Japanese sense of the impermanence of life. From earliest times they have been one of the most popular subjects in Japanese poetry. People even make trips especially to "visit" the cherry blossoms as they come into flower in different places, thus giving rise to such expressions as "a pilgrimage to the blossoms" (hana-angya).

Haiku and text: Madoka Mayuzumi

Translation: Janine Beichman

Photo credit: Fukushima-Minpo Co., Ltd.

First publication: 13 May 2014, Fukushima-Minpo Newspaper

Photo caption: Yonomori Park