On August 21 Nancy and I went to a shamisen concert at Third Eye, a coffee/ Southeast Asian goods/ drum shop in Togano.

It started with too-fast Japanese
bamboo heat, Indonesian wood carvings,
incense and beads, low rumble djembes,
tied-died sarongs, NORML T-shirts,
Nepalese toques, the calm of fresh coffee,
Sato Michihiro and the first stroke
of the top string.

Ding-ding ding-ding-ding ding-ding
clack ding-ding clack-clack ding
plectrum, body, string ding-ding
Sato-san Buddha-faced, dark, hard
rosewood body faced clack ding-ding.

“This song, sung by geisha,
was later absorbed into kabuki.
Lost love and tragic death.
Listen.”

The silence between.
The intense focus and controlled noise,
the slow-fast-faster-stop
of a frog, hopping.

An hour doesn’t last long.
"Encore!"

“Whoop like this and
stomp like this. Ready?
Go!” That generations old farm house
shook in the night. We laughed
and sweated with cicada screech-song
and tropical mountain heat.

Stop:
the final stroke
of the bottom string.