Jovan Virag - Torii Gates

California poet Jovan Virag serves readers as a guide up to a mountaintop Shinto shrine in Japan with her poem “Torri Gates”. The clipped pace of the poem’s quick little lines recall ascending the steps toward the shrine, with Jovan’s intention of leaving the reader as breathless as the pilgrim. “’Torii Gates’ captures the experience of visiting a Shinto shrine, Fushimi Inari-taisha, in Kyoto, Japan. The path up the mountain is lined by bamboo, and as one walks the path, they move through hundreds of bright red Torii gates,” Jovan explained to The Dewdrop. She concluded, “The poem ends on a spiritual note with the ‘stone foxes,’ Kami Inari, and drops of water into a pool.”

Torii Gates

Through ten thousand gates, painted
like the setting sun, orange
iron before the plunge, I
was swallowed alive.

Inside the mountain’s throat,
lined with skyward shoots of jade
bamboo untamed
outside the crimson cage, its
red ribs cascade, falling
like frames, animate
flames crawling up my legs
as my feet
hammer
an ancient way.

Inside, I moved away,
through barred and dappled
shade that gave
little reprieve
from swelter and bloom
open pored
the wind ignored
and salt
encompassed me.

Dripping,
my feet still
hammer
up the never-ending
serpentine
accordion spine until
I ascended.

And came face to face
with two stone foxes
carved by distant hands
of a silenced song
time dimmed
to a whisper
riding the water
in the wind.

Mossy memories cling
to the foxes
and catch
water condensed
on velvet green
and slide
down ancient beards, guided
by the feathered tail, gather
weight and
drip—
plunge—
singular drops
into a pool of ripples.

Jovan Virag

Jovan Francesca Virag is a California based poet who is working toward her Master’s degree in English with an emphasis in creative writing at Sacramento State University. When she’s not writing or reading poetry, she can be found sewing on her treadle sewing machine, spinning wool yarn, and kitting. She has six chickens, three cats, two dogs, two kids, and one husband.