Laurence Lieberman
THE
KOFUKUJI ARSONISTS
In
Kofukuji museum stands a phalanx
of august statues-stone, clay and bronze figures–
salvaged from two millennia of lordly
firebugs (can Japanese pyromania,
a dominant trait, be carried in the genes?)....
From era to era, embattled warlords
sped to be first to set fire to shrine or sacred
temple, each breathless to outpace the rival.
At midnight, all the sculpted deities, gathered
withindoors, re-live their heroic couplings
to long-dead hermit priests who rescued them
throughout history, the monks keeping one jump
ahead of the royal incendiaries-
those feuding clans! Conflagrations erupt
like brushfires on a sun-baked hillside, each sparked
by insult or stain of honor. Yet always,
century after century, the exile
monk, life-taken-between-the-teeth outlaw
from both factions, steals into the blaze, leaps
through the circle of flames, and flying, wingless,
through the collapsing doorway, dodges falling
rafter, crumbling doorjamb-each a hoop of fire:
he must race flame-tongues licking across the walls,
sweeping interior chambers. A Kofukuji
student monk, trained in soldiership, always saves,
first, Kannon Bosatsu (the thousand-handed,
eleven-faced squatting Goddess of Mercy):
hoisting the statue, braced on the fireman's
carry-hold of his crossed forearms, or hefted
up high on his back; and then, tumbling backwards
