Fire Flower

Above the fence
a morning glory stretches
still unsatisfied.

Wakisho Mikoto saw shidarezakura for the first time in the field of her uncle’s summer home, a private orchard cloistered in the forest on the eastern edge of the Fire Country. Childhood memory left her with the impression only of beauty – the tickle of petals on her cheekbones as she ran through the drooping bows; a forest of pastel paintbrushes dipped in saccharine shades; pink and white spinning tops, spiraling down to frost the ground like piles of cake icing; the scent of flowers, redolent of morning rain.

Youth knows only spring.

Blow if you will,
fall wind — the flowers
have all faded.

Indisputably, at the age of 13 months, Itachi was marked a genius. His coal dark eyes were more attentive than those of most three-year-olds, tracking movement will acuity. He had not spoken yet, which would normally be a sign of retarded growth, but Uchiha Mikoto recognized the telltale sign of early Sharingan development – contemplation – as if he refused to speak to the world before knowing it.

Her child would be a torch among candles.

Though she had made no offering before, she traveled to the shrine of Kariteimo in the summer of her motherhood, a weekend pilgrimage in geta and kimono with a single lady in waiting and a chaperon of her house guard. The water of the cleansing trough was hot in the July afternoon. The humid air wafted her offering through the rafters of the open temple shrine, enticing heaven with myre and sandalwood. With a small bow to the altar, she clapped twice and bid the goddess bless her son, for all family harmony stemmed from the protector of children.

She made her way back through the Uchiha estate orchards, past the flowerless boughs of the sakura. As Mikoto stepped through the shoji of her home, the caretaker bustled to her side, cheeks flushed with excitement.

“Ma’am, the young master has started speaking!”

Her heart tripped over her rib cage as she made her way to the nursery to find her son sitting near the sunlight, his hands in his lap, gazing out the open window with a gravity almost unbecoming to a child’s face. She stepped forward and smiled brightly as she called to him, “Itachi?”

Her son turned to meet her gaze, oil black irises gleaming with intelligence.

The hand that had been reaching to pluck him up and gather her child into her arms faltered.

“Mother.”

She shivered, and told the maid to close the window.

There was a draft.

That which blossoms
falls, the way of all flesh
in this world of flowers.

His will of fire has faded, transient as the spring blossoms, winter in the seat of his soul. In Fire Country, the fields are dry and brown, a wilted vastness awaiting water.

Sasuke returns to the grave.

The Uchiha headstones honor empty ground where only dirt lies beneath. Sharingan users are not afforded the luxury of burial. They are burned.

The ashes from the explosion are piling against the token stone markers like dirty snow drifts, a mockery of the journey through the Death Mountain pass, walking through the winter of life to the summer of eternity, wicker sandals from vigilant family members on their feet. There were no sandals for his clan. Itachi’s shuzoku-shi left too many bare feet for one small child.

Sasuke rises from his kneeling covenant, ash caking his knees.

There are neither sweet haikus nor fragrant bouquets for his mother’s grave, only the testament of fire.

May it burn out brightly.

~o~o~o~

Author’s Notes: The poems’ authors, in order of appearance, are as follows: Shukyo Gansan, Kiko, and Matsuo Basho. These poems are all jisei, Japanese death poems, froma book by Yoel Hoffman. The flower symbolizes the impermanence of life and the folly of striving to live with the inevitability of death. Shuzoku-shi means “clan death”, reflecting a common Japanese practice of referring to the nature and context of one’s death, rather than the generic word “shi”. Finally, the Japanese have traditionally depicted death as a journey through a mountain pass, and many families would leave sandals for the departed with which to make the journey. The Japanese have such a beautiful view of death.