The ink dark moon

I thought to pick
the flower of forgetting
for myself
but I found it
already growing in his heart. 
 
-onn no komachi
 
my final paper is due today.(I'm working on it Josh!) 
It seems like the whole thing was a dream
and here at home it is business as usual.   Why won't they let me
remember? To whom can I share those moments? 
I want to remember everything but the subtle details
slip through the cracks of time like lucid flowing waters.
 
I don't want to share any of my thoughts or 
my intimate secrets here or anywhere.
I don't want them to know of
the people I met,
the sights that inspired,
the impact it all had on my life.
 
****
I climbed up the steep stairway to the top of the hillside in Kyoto.
Atonement was found beneath the orange boughs of the shrine;
the purification and ceremony of water--
putting out the ash with my heel;
scattering each blackened photograph 
down the mountainside like feathers.
release.
 
Atop the roof we looked out over the city
shared our stories
and held each other tightly.
 
why haven't I 
 thought of this before?
This body,
remembering yours,
is the keepsake you left.

-Izumi Shikibu