the Ballad of Narayama

By Jan Garden Castro

We fly over snow–covered mountains, huts
snow–heaped, then tuck inside Orin’s. She tends
the fire, a motherless girl, her three sons, village
matters. Children call her a witch with 33 teeth!
At 69, she knocks out her own teeth, pretends she’s weak.

Grasshoppers mate, snakes eat rats whole, rice grows in poor
soil.
When her husband disgraced the family, Orin’s eldest, 15,
killed him.
Young son smells bad, copulates with a dog; Orin finds an old
widow
for him. She exposes a family stealing food — the village men
bury
them alive — including the pregnant wife of the middle son.

Now the hardest part. Near 70, Orin readies to go
to Narayama, a long journey up, up, and three mountains
away.
Elder son leaves his mother on her prayer mat among
the bones. Vultures circle. Snow begins to fall.

— Film by Shõhei Imamura, 1983, Palme d’Or, Cannes.
— Set c. 1810, Japan, after story “Narayama bushikô,” 1958