The
Brady Archive
Ripples
By
Robert Brady, (KJ
47)
One early
morning each Spring as I descend the mountain road, acquiring as I go
the joy of the roadside stream, whose watery exuberance is very catching
(For what can be happier than a stream that is well on its way?), I
am struck for the first time that year full in the eyes by a flash of
morning sun up from the earth, from a new facet of water freshly laid
out during night; the lower rice paddies are flooding in accord with
the ancient aquastructure that has operated to quicken these wintry
fields for many thousands of years it must be, according to neighborly
Mr. O., who speaks of such ancient doings as personal acquaintances.
This is a subject of original economy, after all, of the earth house
where we live, and so is good news to everyone. And like all the best
things, this is purely natural and of minimal energy cost, since the
whole cycle works on sunlight, water and gravity, so the farmers all
have to wait until those three ancient laborers are finished with the
job, and they do take their time for such low wages, there is no hurrying
those old friends when they work thus together, as they have since the
first light. Thanks to their labor, each spring morning more of the
vast and complex paddyweb is completed, the mountain thus naturally
slowly being polished to a diamond of water and light until one late
Spring sunrise it is uncounted billions of carats of sparkling beauty
that will in a month or two turn a deep imperial jade that dances elegantly
in the wind. The headwaters of all this brightness and growth, a mountaintop
pond, is the subject of a local folk tale. Long ago, back in the days
when myth and life were one, a woodcutter’s wife from down in
the village fell in love with the handsome spirit that lived in the
pond atop the mountain, and set off one day to go live with her lover.
Her husband and children followed her up the mountain to the pond’s
edge, pleading with her to return home. As her lover beckoned from the
pond, the anguished mother plucked out one of her eyes and gave it to
her children to remember her by; she then went into the pond forever.
That pond, today called Kojoike or Konyoike (Little Woman Pond) by the
local folks, isn’t very impressive as ponds go, in its small vale
atop the mountain; but each spring and summer, day by day, it nurtures
every grain of rice on the mountainside, as once more the mother gives
her eye to her children, and the power and depth of the myth are passed
down as bright and eternal as new grains of rice in the hand.
Copyright
held by the author
Back to Brady
Archive
Subscriptions
