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Evening
At the tip of a long pole, a small flame.
Someone in a happi coat holds it aloft and comes walking down the street.
They stop before a post and reach the pole upward.
Inside the glass, the flame takes.
The pole comes down, and the walking begins again.
To the next post.
The fifth year of Meiji, the end of the ninth month by the old calendar.
From Ōe Bridge along Bashamichi to Honchō-dōri, a dozen or so gas lamps were raised.
The gas was made from coal, a little way off, at the foot of Iseyama.
This is said to be the first place in Japan where gas lamps were lit.
Come evening, it is said, someone called a lamplighter would arrive and light them, one by one.
In the morning, it seems, they went round again putting the flames out.
Light cannot be stored.
Last night’s flames are gone by morning.
So every day, as the sun begins to lean, the round begins again at the first post.
By the time the last lamp at the end of the street was lit, the sky would have gone fully dark.
Looking back, only the way they had walked would be bright, dot by dot.
Soot
Those walking beneath the lamps probably do not remember the face of the one holding the pole.
By the time they notice, the lamp is already lit.
The one who lit it is, by then, beneath a post two or three further on.
Each time it burns, the flame clouds the inside of the glass a little more.
Soot gathers.
Left unpolished, the light dims at a pace too slow to notice.
The glass, it seems, was polished once a week.
And on the night after the polishing, the people passing along the street go by without noticing a thing.
By the end of Meiji, the street’s lamps were giving way to electricity.
The ones who walked with poles may have gone, too, at some point no one marked.
The Next Table
After work, I rented a table by myself.
At the table I was shown to, the two before me were just putting away their cues.
Once they leave, someone from the hall comes over.
With a cloth, one pass around the edge of the cushions.
Then the brush.
From the far end toward the near, all in one direction, slowly, they sweep.
The scattered chalk dust is drawn together, little by little, and disappears.
“Go ahead.”
That was all, and they went back to the counter.
The nap of the cloth lies all one way.
Roll the cue ball, and it goes straight, and far.
You could no longer tell that two people had been playing here a moment ago.
Before the first shot, I hesitate, just a little.
The Far Table
At the far table, someone is playing alone.
Three balls set out, shot, then set out again in the same places.
A face I had seen before, on a match stream.
On the wall, a flyer for next month’s tournament.
One pushpin has come loose, and a corner curls up slightly.
Until a little before closing, they kept shooting the same layout.
The other customers watch the balls on their own tables.
In or out, there is no applause.
Three balls, set out again.
The Way Home
When time is up, I gather the balls into the basket and return them to the counter.
Going back for my jacket, I found the attendant at the table I had just been playing on.
A cloth, once around the edge of the cushions.
Then, from the far end toward the near, the brush.
The chalk dust I scattered is drawn in.
The front door opens, and the next two customers come in.
On my way out, I pass the far table.
That player was still setting out three balls.
Outside, the gas lamps of Bashamichi were already lit.
When they came on, I couldn’t say.
Nowhere on the street is there anyone holding a pole.
Over the paving stones, I walk toward the station.
On the walls of the old stone buildings, the color of flame wavers faintly.
The light from the shop across the way is white as noon.
I pass beneath the first lamp.
The second.
The third.
At each post, for some reason, my steps slow.
Partway along the street stood a monument to Japan’s first gas lamp.
October 31, I’m told, is Gas Day.
Walking to the next post.
Looking back, the way I have come is bright, dot by dot.
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