Japanese Mosses

The Moss 'Saiho-ji ' Temple - Kokedera

http://phototravels.net/kyoto/zen-gardens-saiho-ji.html

All though this photo is beautiful and is a reminder of the soft downy nature of moss, and also the person who sent it, it needs a poem; hunting for the book Cherry Tree by Geoffrey Grigson the book has seemingly disappeared, but perhaps one by Edward Thomas will suffice, for it echoes the bleakness of autumn ...................

Up on the Downs

Up on the downs the red-eyed kestrels hover,

Eyeing the grass.

The field-mouse flits like a shadow into cover

As their shadows pass.

Men are burning the gorse on the down's shoulder;

A drift of smoke

Glitters with fire and hangs, and the skies smoulder,

And the lungs choke.

Once the tribe did thus on the downs, on these downs burning

Men in the frame,

Crying to the gods of the downs till their brains were turning

And the gods came.

And today on the downs, in the wind, the hawks, the grasses,

In blood and air,

Something passes me and cries as it passes.

On the chalk downland bare.