50 States in 50 Days

It's National Poetry Writing Month again, and I've started a project tentatively titled "50 States in 50 Days," as a way of getting to know this country better. Suggestions welcomed. Here's Day One:

Alabama

Why would you
want to see
a natural disaster,
even if
it’s the greatest?
Visit the Vulcan
instead,
cast-iron god
holding up
his new spearhead
to the sun.
You can’t see
the impact crater,
even though
the impact rim
is intact.
You can only walk
in the maze of rings
of fractured rock,
more than 3 miles across,
hope to find
in the ground
a splinter of shocked quartz,
which proved
this is indeed
a star-wound.


*

PB invited GH and me to a sake tasting last night. Terada Honke has brewed sake for more than 340 years in Kozaki, in Chiba Prefecture, 87.5 km to the northeast of Tokyo. The lecture was by the 24th Head, Masaru Terada, who married into the family, like the two generations before him. The brewing house specializes in so-called natural fermentation, which allows the rice malt to ferment naturally with micro-organisims in the air, without artificial additives. The only "ingredients" added are white koji mold and a yeast called Shubo. The sake we tried were Gonin Musume, Kaiko Shu, Shibotta Manma, Musubi, and Daigo No Shizuku.





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