Wild jumble of sugi, stochastic downage, snapped like toothpicks, thrown across the path by typhoon, one of many yearly typhoons, typhoons getting worse and worse it seems, the Kii Peninsula receiving a sort of blunt-force climate change trauma; years before, the first time I walked Kumano Kodō I saw the muddy river, muddied, they said, because of the tremendous recent typhoon, the one that killed this person’s husband, the one that erased this mountain road, the one that all the diggers in the river were cleaning up, “fixing” the flow; and yet, in 1889 other floods, Hongu Taisha moved from Ōyu-no-Hara to higher grounds; but here, in this frame, evidence of post-war lumber industry, young sugi, industry sugi, weak sugi, shallow roots, easily upturned by stiff breeze, this particular path of the Kumano Kodō closed for years; finally got sick of walking the five-kilometer+ detour around, walked right through it, right through this jumble, a dumb move no doubt, halfway through as I climbed under and over these logs I thought of them shifting just a few inches and crushing me, my legs, my chest, so dumb, but not that dumb, have done dumber things, certainly, and only about two-hundred meters of jumble, this photo taken three years ago, wondering if they’ve cleaned it up.

Wild jumble of sugi, stochastic downage, snapped like toothpicks, thrown across the path by typhoon, one of many yearly typhoons, typhoons getting worse and worse it seems, the Kii Peninsula receiving a sort of blunt-force climate change trauma; years before, the first time I walked Kumano Kodō I saw the muddy river, muddied, they said, because of the tremendous recent typhoon, the one that killed this person’s husband, the one that erased this mountain road, the one that all the diggers in the river were cleaning up, “fixing” the flow; and yet, in 1889 other floods, Hongu Taisha moved from Ōyu-no-Hara to higher grounds; but here, in this frame, evidence of post-war lumber industry, young sugi, industry sugi, weak sugi, shallow roots, easily upturned by stiff breeze, this particular path of the Kumano Kodō closed for years; finally got sick of walking the five-kilometer+ detour around, walked right through it, right through this jumble, a dumb move no doubt, halfway through as I climbed under and over these logs I thought of them shifting just a few inches and crushing me, my legs, my chest, so dumb, but not that dumb, have done dumber things, certainly, and only about two-hundred meters of jumble, this photo taken three years ago, wondering if they’ve cleaned it up.



huh, Season 01 – Issue 18

 
 

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