But Imurinya silenced them with a gentle hand
and asked: “Why should a comb make me happy?”
The hunter replied, “The rabbits have told me
that past the light you shine,
your eyes are dark with sorrow.
I have no gold, and I have no kingdom,
but I would give this comb to hold up your hair
so that I may see your eyes and light them with joy.”
And so Imurinya loved and wedded him.
But shortly after, tales of her light reached the heavens,
and the great gods recognized their sister Emuri’en reborn.
They sent cranes to fetch her
with a peach of immortality to restore her goddess-hood,
but Imurinya would not return without her mortal husband,
and he was not welcome among the gods.
Clever as she was, she split the fruit,
serving half in the hunter’s soup and half in her own.
Together they flew midway to heaven,
claiming the moon as theirs.
Now once a year, on this winter night,
her thousand cranes return her to heaven
and she becomes Emuri’en once more,
goddess of fate and love.
Takkan’s voice grew quiet, and the last strains of his song were so soft that no one dared breathe. He lifted his lantern, its rich blue paper painted with rabbits and cranes and a silver moon. His eyes searched the crowd until they caught my gaze. He smiled, and inhaled a deep breath:
To honor her darkest moon,
we light our lanterns
so some of our light will touch the sky,
just as hers touches our earth.
At last Megari strummed a final chord.
As the silence lingered, I inhaled, feeling a gentle ache in my chest. Imurinya’s was a story of love and loss, so different from my own, and yet I couldn’t help but empathize. In her own way, she too was cursed, unable to go home.
