Feb '04 [Home] Fiction/Short Prose First Trip to Tokyo SuzAnne C. Cole

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As the airport bus drives on an elevated freeway into the city center, I look directly into office windows—room after room of desks jammed up against each other, floating in seas of white shirts.           wide windows reveal           serried ranks of useful desks           knobby black bowed heads           Returning to my hotel room after exercising, I find myself in a baker's dozen of kimono-clad women, all of them in shades of brown. In my fuschia running suit, I am a blonde head taller than any of them.           Western woman stalks           through covey of kimonos           scattering the quail           Walking to dinner in the Ginza with our son and daughter-in-law, I see a beautifully made-up geisha clopping along in platform sandals, cell phone to her ear.           geisha in white silk           mincing down the sidewalk           chatting on cellphone           On a day trip to Mount Fuji, we stop for photographs. Volcanic rock forms the shoulder of the road; beyond is a sweeping panorama of mountains with snow-capped Fuji presiding over the lesser deities in the foreground. Larch trees go golden-brown as we climb higher.           larch trees glowing gold           offer swooping obeisance           to grand Fuji-san           We board an aerial cableway and ride to the summit of Mt. Komagatake. I leave the group and hike through long green grass towards a shrine on another peak. Glorious sky streaked with red and gold.           Komagatake           mountain shrine standing alone           in sea of sweet grass SuzAnne C. Cole, a Houstonian since l972, has published books, essays, poetry, plays, and fiction in many commercial and literary magazines, newspapers, and anthologies including Newsweek, Houston Chronicle, USA Today, Troika, Personal Journaling, and Writing Your Life Story. She also wrote To Our Heart's Content: Meditations for Women Turning 50. Her short prose piece "Dream House" was added to Big City, Little (Houston), a cumulative section of the magazine, in Feb '02.