On the upper floor there live two women,
Sisters, never married, now grown old.
Late in autumn they string ripe persimmon
Out to dry in winter’s bright blue cold.
Shriveled like the fruit, they count each blessing
On their homemade soroban of grace,
One by one a lifetime’s gifts addressing
With their praises of the commonplace:
Ichi for the rice, the tea, the soybean;
Ni, Amaterasu’s sunlit myth;
San, tatami mat and shoji room screen;
Yon, another to count blessings with.
(Another poem with trochaic meter. As far as I know, “persimmon” is the only true rhyme for “women” in English. That plus the sight of drying persimmons, which reminded me of an abacus—which in Japanese is called a soroban 算盤—inspired the poem. Words and photos by Sarah Hinlicky Wilson.)