mute as the native country that was never there

... I hear something
and think I remember it
and will know it afterward

in a few days I will be
a year older one more year
a year farther and nearer
and with no sound from there on
mute as the native country
that was never there again
now I hear walnuts falling
in the country I came to

W.S. Merwin, from "A Morning in Autumn"

Today, we went hiking and had boxed lunch picnic on Kenjo-zan, a mountain that's about a 15-minute car ride from my apartment. Pictures to come. Also, I think I may be allergic to rice - not as in eating rice, but in a hayfever kind of way. It's rice harvest season here, and since Thursday night I've had sore throat and stuffy nose; nothing major, but could be my first known allergy, folks...

Life is good. People are good. But, I miss you. (I went to a pet store yesterday, and they had turtles and rabbits and frogs and very expensive cats and dogs. And newts. They didn't have the orange firebelly, but of course I thought of Figgy and company and all the times we found newts fuzzy with carpet residue in the hallway or under the encyclopedias. I hope you can come to Japan. I want to show you things and have mountain-top picnics and laugh together at the ridiculous things one does unintentionally in a foreign country.)