The Shining Princess of the Supple Bamboo (an excerpt)

Luminescence Emerges from the Supple Bamboo

In the bamboo grove, a hollow knocking echoes from an old man’s axe. He methodically splits stalks that crack and lean eagerly beneath his weight. The sun lays her head behind the mountains as the floor of the thicket settles into shadow, and the banging of the blade carries on.

I watch the starry sky shrink into the distance as I fall down a narrow hole of darkness to the sound of a distant, muffled knocking. My skin prickles with pimples that rise uncontrollably as I press against the cool, supple fibres weaving a cocoon around me.

Upon my touch, celestial light overwhelms the surrounding walls of my leafy cage. It blooms with unhurried elegance, my shine melting into the quiet silver of the moonlit night outside. An earthy fragrance of moss and fallen leaves imbues the air around me, mingling with the fresh scent of bamboo.

Slender stalks of verdant green bow in reverence to my ethereal arrival. This sends a warm breeze ruffling through the locks of ebony that drape about my shoulders, when suddenly a wrinkled human man meets my gaze with wide eyes.

            Solemn in the dark

            The lamp of my radiance -

            Bow before my Grace!