Customer Reviews

Pilgrimage to a Gingko Tree

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This book emerged from my immersion in the story of Hiroshima and in our attempt to be peacemakers at a community center in that place as the world marked the 50th anniversary of the event. The World Friendship Center's way of marking it was to host a Celebration of Hope, with poetry readings, concerts, and displays of artwork, including Claudia Bernardi's print on the book's cover. When I read these poems, I hear so many of the people we met there, like Sumiko Ozawa, who walked to the Friendship Center in the blazing heat of August to bring us folded paper cranes. She was 78 years old. When I read "Passing," I can picture Richard Rohr, a guest who stayed at the Center for a few days, speaking in the common room to a small group of seekers. We came to Hiroshima, a city of million or so people, from an Ohio town of about 25,000, so we were grateful for opportunities to visit the countryside and see the landscape of Japan. The poems "Sandankyo" bring back images of that gorge in autumn while "In the Shadow of Shirakiyama" returns me to the village there, to cherry blossom celebrations, to neighborhood festivals where young boys would play sumo, and to rice harvest parties. I hope these poems reflect the search for peace in ourselves and among us, the beauty and meaning that sustains us, and the stories that bind us together.