The Google doodad

tells me that Akira Kurosawa was born 100 years ago today. He was always one of my—if not the—favorite directors, so I'm honoring him by posting a poem from a few years ago

THE IDEOGRAM

It is the rain, initially, that acts as
catalyst to combine the static
elements. A thin patina of it on the
road, & the slope of the hill behind
provides the perspective that forces
the shadows of the park sign, the gum trees
& the low log fence around the park
into the core of an image, an ideogram
drawn upon the road. To concentrate
the brightness, add low cloud with the
city lights reflecting off it, & sodium lights
above the intersection hidden by the
houses at the top of the hill. Arrange
the ingredients thus; cloud cover,
sodium lights, gum trees, park sign,
fence, rain on the road. I do not know
what the ideogram means, but I archive
it anyway, store it as a zipfile in my mind.

The ideogram is augmented later. A
story on the 10.30 news has as back-
drop to the newsreader a stylised image
of a Japanese gate. Now I know what I am
reminded of, & reach beyond it, through
a simple gate of similar shape. To Akira
Kurosawa’s Rashomon, & that image of
Mifune in the rain, bound with ropes but
still defiant, the mud-smeared murderer
in a story that has four tellings. Foretelling.

In the morning, without backlighting, the
road is nothing more than wet asphalt.
I bring in the newspaper. The death of
Kurosawa is reported on an inside page.