Well-known US poet missing on Japanese island

[Pandabear]

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/National/US_Missing_Poet.html

Well-known US poet missing on Japanese island
By MEAD GRUVER
Associated Press Writer

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — An acclaimed poet who had been working on a book about volcanoes disappeared five days ago during a scouting expedition on a tropical island in southern Japan.

Craig Arnold, 41, is an assistant professor of English at the University of Wyoming. He went missing Monday during a visit to a volcano on the island of Kuchinoerabu-jima in the northern Ryukyu Islands of southern Japan.

Japanese law only requires authorities to look for missing people for three days, but University of Wyoming officials say the search has been extended through Sunday.

Arnold went for a hike up the volcano around mid-afternoon Monday, shortly after arriving at the island by ferry and checking in at an inn, according to his brother, Chris Arnold, of Brooklyn, N.Y.

When Arnold hadn't returned by 8 p.m., the inn staff went looking for him. They reported him missing at 9 p.m., and a formal search began that night.

Forty people, dogs and a helicopter joined the following day's search. Police reported finding Arnold's tracks on a trail up the volcano, but they couldn't find any tracks coming down.

The island is about 7 miles long by 3 miles wide and dominated by an 1,800-foot volcano that last erupted in 1980.

Dense vegetation covers much of the island, but the area near the caldera, the volcanic crater, is bare. Japanese authorities speculate that after emerging at the top, Arnold may have had difficulty finding the trail again to get back down the volcano, Chris Arnold said.

The thick terrain makes helicopter searches virtually useless, said Chris Arnold's wife, Augusta Palmer.

"So they're really having to do it by lines of people walking across areas to make sure they're covered," she said.

Arnold has published two award-winning collections of poetry: "Shells" in 1999, and "Made Flesh," which came out last year. He's known for his searching, passionate, humorous verse, such as "Hymn to Persephone," which begins, "Help me remember this/how once the dead were locked/out of the ground/and wandered sleepless and sun-blinded."

Chris Arnold said his brother lived in Japan for four years as an army brat and has since been a world traveler who has explored many volcanoes for his book.

"He has a lot of experience with visiting volcanoes, and he's very knowledgeable about taking precautions and knowing about the terrain, about the conditions, possible ways he could get into trouble and to plan for those," Chris Arnold said.

*********


I'm trying to find a picture but no luck so far.

[TigressPen]

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/National/US_Missing_Poet.html

Well-known US poet missing on Japanese island
*********


I'm trying to find a picture but no luck so far.




A pic is here - http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=220

[sarahhod]

Poet's disappearance in Japan worries University of Wyoming English Department

By Associated Press
11:25 AM MDT, May 1, 2009

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The English Department at the University of Wyoming held its annual banquet without one of its most esteemed faculty members.

But Craig Arnold wasn't forgotten. Professors and students wore red and black ribbons at Thursday's banquet to keep in mind the well-known poet who's been missing on a Japanese island since last weekend.

Red and black are the colors of the English honor society that Arnold is head of at UW.

Arnold has been writing a book about volcanoes and has been traveling to volcanoes around the world. He went missing Sunday while hiking on the volcano on the island of Kuchinoerabu-jima.

Several days of searching involving more than 50 people, dogs and a helicopter have turned up no sign of Arnold on the small island.

http://www.fox13now.com/news/sns-ap-wy--missingpoet,0,4025321.story

[sarahhod]

Craig Arnold

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/images/poets/c.arnold.135.jpg

From TP's Link:-

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=220

[SavannahStar]

Strange.

(He kinda reminds me of David Bowie.)

[sarahhod]

Saturday, May 2, 2009

American missing on volcanic island is award-winning poet, assistant professor


By ALEX MARTIN (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/JTsearch5.cgi?term1=ALEX%20MARTIN)
Staff writer

The missing American man last seen Monday on Kuchinoerabu Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn19991013a8.html)http://img.breitbart.com/images/lingo/spot/spacer.gif is an award-winning poet and assistant professor at a U.S. university, according to his family and the school.
The man, identified by his brother as Craig Arnold, 41, is on the English department faculty at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. The author of two published volumes of poetry, Arnold is in Japan on the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission's Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship, a press release by the university revealed.
Arnold was apparently visiting the active volcano on the island, 12 km west of Yakushima, for a book he is writing on volcanoes around the world. The last entry in his blog, titled "Volcano Pilgrim: Five Months in Japan as a Wandering Poet," appeared April 26, the day he disappeared.
According to Yakushima police, an unidentified man in his 40s was last seen at the head of a mountain trail on the volcanic island (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20000831a2.html)http://img.breitbart.com/images/lingo/spot/spacer.gif Monday afternoon. Police and firefighters combed the area for three days since learning of the disappearance early Tuesday, but have found no trace of the man, a police official said.
On Friday, a press officer (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080401i1.html)http://img.breitbart.com/images/lingo/spot/spacer.gif at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said that on Thursday four U.S. military helicopters from Kadena Air Base (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20000720b2.html)http://img.breitbart.com/images/lingo/spot/spacer.gif in Okinawa in the area on an unrelated mission assisted in the search for a few hours, but turned up nothing.
Meanwhile, Yakushima police said Friday they will continue the search for another three days with additional personnel. Although such searches usually are called off after three days, the official said they decided to continue after being informed by the U.S. Embassy that "a friend of the missing person" said Arnold had made a Facebook entry at 10:18 a.m. Thursday.
"We thought there were grounds to prolong the search based on that information," the official said.
The embassy official said, however, they had no information regarding the Facebook entry.
Kuchinoerabu is a small, 38-sq.-km island with a population of approximately 150. A popular tourist destination, the island also features volcanic mountains with steep cliffs, which could potentially be dangerous to hikers.
The university's press release said Arnold's book "Shells" was chosen by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet W. S. Merwin for the Yale Series of Younger Poets in 1999. Arnold published a second volume of verse, titled "Made Flesh," in 2008.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090502a8.html

[sarahhod]

Private Search Launched for Missing Professor

May 5, 2009

The search for a missing University of Wyoming professor and poet will continue this week.
Japanese officials announced they are scaling back their search, and a private American search and rescue group, hired by the family of Craig Arnold, (http://www.uwyo.edu/news/showrelease.asp?id=30881) has begun its search.
Arnold, 41, was reported missing last week on the Japanese island of Kuchinoerabu after setting out for a hike to explore the volcano on the island. Arnold has been in Japan as part of the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission's Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship to research volcanoes for a book he was planning.
Public safety officials and local residents, with assistance of U.S. helicopters, have been searching the heavily forested island for signs of Arnold since he was reported missing more than a week ago
"I and the UW community are extremely pleased that the Japanese government extended the search for as long as they were able and that the search will continue with the private search team. We hope that Craig is found," UW President Tom Buchanan said.
Members of Arnold's family have contracted with 1SRG, a private search group, to continue looking for the mission professor.
Buchanan says Wyoming's congressional delegation, Sen. Mike Enzi, Sen. John Barrasso and Rep. Cynthia Lummis has been instrumental in ensuring the search continues and is monitoring events through contact with the U.S. Department of State. "Our Congressional delegation was quick to act when we shared the news of Craig's disappearance. We're very grateful for the work they did."
The Wyoming delegation has helped pursue additional search efforts through direct contacts and formal letters of request. It continues to urge the U.S. Embassy in Japan and the U.S. Department of State to use all appropriate means at their disposal to locate Arnold.
Arnold joined the UW faculty in 2004 after earning his Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Utah and a bachelor's degree in English language and literature from Yale University.
Arnold has written two award-winning volumes of poetry: "Shells," chosen by W.S. Merwin for the highly prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets in 1999, and "Made Flesh" (2008). His poetry has been anthologized in several volumes of the Best American Poetry Series, and his poems, articles, and translations from the Spanish have appeared in such publications as The New Republic, Paris Review, Poetry Magazine, Yale Review, and others.
He has earned numerous awards and honors, including a Fulbright Fellowship, the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Alfred Hodder Fellowship in Humanities from Princeton University, an Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

http://www.uwyo.edu/news/showrelease.asp?id=31081

[sarahhod]

Search for US poet in Japan to be scaled down

By MARI YAMAGUCHI

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/media/ALeqM5gd47WoVNE1OHsgamrnTwRLZ_TrMQ?size=s2 (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/slideshow/ALeqM5gLhJ5hsGFROyZtfT6uRyIiG0_MwwD980EKLG0?index= 0&ned=uk)
FILE --This undated file photo released by Ausable Press shows Craig Arnold, 41. Arnold, an assistant professor of English at the University of Wyoming and a published poet. The search for Arnold who disappeared on a remote Japanese island will end Wednesday, May 6, 2009,a police official said. (AP Photo/Ausable Press, Amanda Abel)


TOKYO (AP) — Authorities have scaled down their search for an award-winning U.S. poet who disappeared while hiking up a volcano on a remote Japanese island because their efforts have yielded no clues for more than a week, police said Wednesday.
University of Wyoming assistant professor Craig Arnold, 41, was reported missing April 27 after he failed to return from a hike on the tiny island of Kuchinoerabu-jima, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) off the coast of Japan's southern Kyushu island.
Ten rescue workers, including policemen and firefighters, left for the day's search after sunrise Wednesday, down from 40 people through Tuesday, local police official Takashi Yamasaki said. They will be hiking up the volcano while combing through the area, he added.
Yamasaki said the poet has not returned to a local inn for nine days since he left for a hike.
"We have not found anything, including his belongings," another local police official, Yoshiyuki Kuzuhara, said.
A U.S.-based search-and-rescue organization sent four people to Japan to keep up the search.
The searchers from the 1st Special Response Group arrived Tuesday night. Their strategy will be to look carefully for Arnold's trail and then pursue any signs, said David Kovar, founder of the nonprofit organization based in Mountain View, California.
Japanese authorities say they had ruled out Arnold being either inside the volcano's crater or at the barren top of the mountain. U.S. military aircraft were involved in the search during its first day.
Kuzuhara said the mountain has no hiking trail, and the locals hardly go there.
The island, with a population of just 150 people, is covered by dense vegetation. It is about seven miles (11 kilometers) long and three miles (five kilometers) wide and dominated by the 1,800-foot (550-meter) volcano, which last erupted in 1980.
Arnold had been traveling around the world, working on a book about volcanoes. He is the author of two award-winning books of poetry and was in Japan through the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission's Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship.
Since arriving in Japan in mid-March, Arnold had updated his blog "Volcano Pilgrim: Five Months in Japan as a Wandering Poet," almost daily. The last entry was dated April 26, the day before his disappearance, when he wrote about Miyakejima, another volcanic island off the southern coast of Tokyo.
Arnold grew up in a U.S. Air Force family and lived four years on the Japanese island of Okinawa, where the U.S. military has several bases.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gLhJ5hsGFROyZtfT6uRyIiG0_MwwD980EKLG0

[annalyzer]

Trackers find trail of missing U.S. poet in Japan

Published: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 3:44 p.m. MDT

TOKYO — A team of American trackers found the footprints Wednesday of an award-winning U.S. poet who went missing on a remote Japanese island while hiking up a volcano.

University of Wyoming assistant professor Craig Arnold, 41, was reported missing April 27, after he failed to return from a hike on the tiny island of Kuchinoerabu-jima, about 30 miles off the coast of Japan's southern Kyushu island. Arnold is a University of Utah alumnus.

Japanese authorities scaled down their search because their efforts yielded no clues for more than a week. But a four-person team of American trackers arrived in Japan on Tuesday and picked up Arnold's trail Wednesday, according to David Kovar, founder of the California-based 1st Special Response Group.

Searchers found what they believed were Arnold's footprints near a volcanic crater at the top of the volcano. They judged them from a photo Arnold once took of his own footprints in volcanic mud.

The searchers followed the footprints to an area with deep ravines but couldn't be sure whether Arnold had entered them, Kovar said.

By that point, it was getting dark, and the search was suspended for the day.

"The first order of business this morning when they start out is to see where his sign leads them," Kovar said. "They're going to follow the sign wherever it leads."

Entering the ravines, he said, might require using climbing equipment.

Ten Japanese rescue workers, including policemen and firefighters, left for the day's search after sunrise Wednesday, down from 40 people through Tuesday, local police official Takashi Yamasaki said.

Yamasaki said the poet has not returned to a local inn for nine days since he left for a hike.

"We have not found anything, including his belongings," another local police official, Yoshiyuki Kuzuhara, said.

Japanese authorities say they had ruled out Arnold being either inside the volcano's two craters or at the barren top of the mountain. U.S. military aircraft were involved in the search during its first day.

(more at link)
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705301816,00.html

[Faith]

Search wanes for professor missing on volcanic island

(CNN) -- Three police officers continued to search Thursday for an American professor who disappeared on a small volcanic island in Japan.

Japanese authorities had scaled back the search for Craig Arnold, an award-winning poet who has been missing for 11 days.

At one point, teams of rescuers scoured the island on foot, while others searched from helicopters. But the search had dwindled by Thursday.

On April 27, the 41-year-old assistant professor from the University of Wyoming did not return from a hike to a volcano on Kuchinoerabujima, an island in southern Japan, the school said.

"The only clues that [searchers] have found were indications that he had begun the ascent -- footprints on the trail," said Peter Parolin, head of the university's English department, citing information from Arnold's family.

Kazuko Watanabe, the owner of the inn where Arnold was staying, said he had a cup of tea before leaving on his hike but did not seem to take food or water with him.

Search efforts normally end after three days, but the hunt for Arnold continued after a friend claimed that the professor's Facebook account was accessed for about a minute last Thursday, a police spokesman said.

Arnold, a creative writing professor, was doing research for a poetry and essay book he is writing about volcanoes, Parolin said.

Arnold wrote two award-winning volumes of poetry -- "Shells," chosen for the Yale Series of Younger Poets in 1999, and 2008's "Made Flesh" -- according to the school.

His work has been anthologized in several volumes of the "Best American Poetry Series," and his awards and honors include a Fulbright fellowship and the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, according to the University of Wyoming.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/07/japan.missing.poet/

[Nut44x4]

May 8, 7:47 PM EDT

School: Family of missing poet believes he died

By BEN NEARY
Associated Press Writer
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- The family of a University of Wyoming professor missing on a remote Japanese island believes he fell during a hike and didn't survive, the school said Friday.

Craig Arnold's family "learned from the private search group it hired that Arnold likely fell from a high and dangerous cliff, and there is virtually no possibility he could have survived the fall," the university said in a press release Friday.
more at link.......
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MISSING_POET?
SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Missing poet Craig Arnold presumed dead

Award-winning poet Craig Arnold, who went missing in Japan in late April, is presumed to have died after a fall, his employer, the University of Wyoming, announced Friday. The university had established a fund to try to find Arnold after Japanese authorities ended their search.

The American search team that arrived tracked Arnold to the edge of "a high and dangerous cliff, and there is virtually no possibility he could have survived the fall," the release explained. Arnold was fascinated with volcanoes and had traveled to Kuchinoerabu-jima, a tiny Japanese island, to visit the volcano there. The 41-year-old author was in Japan on a creative exchange fellowship.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/05/missing-poet-craig-arnold-presumed-dead.html

[sarahhod]

Poet fell to death from cliff

Searchers say Arnold did not survive fall from cliff.
By Ben Fulton
The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 05/08/2009 10:32:09 PM MDT

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site297/2009/0508/20090508__Arnold_0509%7EP1_200.jpg (http://www.sltrib.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=2430836 )
Craig Arnold, a renowned poet with Utah ties, has been missing from a small Japanese island since April 26.



An extended search of the Japanese island Kuchino-erabu for traces of Craig Arnold had offered up hope the poet might be injured, but still alive, among one of the island's many crevices.
That hope died Friday afternoon once a search team announced that a trail discovered the previous day showed signs that Arnold, 41, suffered a leg injury, then fell from a steep cliff to his death soon afterward.
"The only relief in this news is that we do know exactly what befell Craig, and we can be fairly certain that it was very quick, and that he did not wait or wonder or suffer," wrote Rebecca Lindenberg, Arnold's partner of six years, on a Web site she maintained during the search.
News of the discovery sent shock waves through several English department faculty members soon after University of Utah graduation exercises Friday afternoon. Arnold graduated with a doctorate from the U.'s creative writing program in 2001 after earning his bachelor's degree from Yale, and went on to teach poetry and literature at the University of Wyoming in Laramie in 2004. Arnold was exploring the island for a book he planned to write on the world's active volcanos, and had been missing since April 27.
"All the faculty at convocation was wondering, speculating and browbeating each other. Most had begun to turn a corner and realize that any good news would be unlikely," said Katherine Coles, U. faculty member and Utah poet laureate. "I'm sure everybody will share the deep grief of Craig's family, but also the relief that he wasn't lying injured for days." Raised in a military family that lived in Texas but often lived abroad, Arnold garnered one of his first major literary prizes, the Yale Younger Poets award, for his 1999 poetry collection, Shells , while living in Salt Lake City. He went on to earn a Fulbright Fellowship and several major prizes that allowed him to live and study abroad, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Rome Prize in Literature for 2005. He was traveling in Japan this year through a U.S.-Japanese Friendship Commission's Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship. He visited Utah on Feb. 18 to read from his newest collection of poetry, Made Flesh , at the Salt Lake City Main Library.
Robert Pinsky, poet laureate of the United States from 1997 to 2000, hailed Arnold as "one of the most gifted and accomplished poets of his generation."
Jacqueline Osherow, professor of English at the U. and Arnold's adviser in the doctoral program, said is devastated by the loss. Osherow said her letter recommending Arnold for the fellowship in Japan weighed on her at first after news of his disappearance, but has since lifted. She described Arnold as a big-hearted person whose immense talent let him do what he wanted in life.
"I'm more broken-hearted for him than the poems he didn't live to write," Osherow said. "This is a loss to American literature and letters. It's wrong to say he was full of promise, because he delivered on that."

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12329871

[sarahhod]

How terribly sad.

:1222423: :1222423: :1222423:

[sarahhod]

News Release

UW Poet and Professor Believed to Have Died after Fall


May 8, 2009 -- The family of missing University of Wyoming professor and poet Craig Arnold has learned from the private search group it hired that Arnold likely fell from a high and dangerous cliff, and there is virtually no possibility he could have survived the fall.
"We had truly hoped for a different outcome to this story," UW President Tom Buchanan says. "On behalf of all the faculty and staff at the University of Wyoming, I extend my deepest regrets to Craig's family and fiancee."
Japanese officials started searching for Arnold on April 27 after Arnold failed to return to his inn from a hike on the Japanese island of Kuchinoerabu.
Arnold was researching volcanoes for a book he was writing. He was in Japan through the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission's Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship.
"So many in our community and across the country were fervently hoping for Craig's safe return that this news today feels unbearable," Beth Loffreda, director of the UW Masters of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing, says. "We are especially thinking of Craig's son Robin, his partner Rebecca, his mother and father Judy and John, and his brother Chris and his family."
"Knowing Craig has enriched our lives and losing him is devastating," Peter Parolin, head of the UW English department, says. "We will remember him always and will have a time in the near future to celebrate his life and his beautiful work."
Buchanan credits the work of Wyoming's congressional delegation, Sen. Mike Enzi, Sen. John Barrasso and Rep. Cynthia Lummis, for extending the search for Arnold on the heavily forested volcanic island.
"Sens. Barrasso and Enzi and Rep. Lummis responded quickly last week to our requests for assistance. Since that time, they have continued to monitor the situation through the State Department and have assessed and acted on all avenues of support. I know the search would not have continued as long as it did without the help of the delegation," Buchanan says. "I'm extremely grateful they were able to take quick action and advocate for Craig when we shared the news of his disappearance."
Arnold came to UW in 2004 as an assistant professor of English after he earned a doctorate from the University of Utah and a bachelor's degree from Yale University in English language and literature.
Arnold wrote two award-winning volumes of poetry: "Shells," chosen by W.S. Merwin for the highly prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets in 1999, and "Made Flesh" (2008). His poetry has been anthologized in several volumes of the Best American Poetry Series, and his poems, articles, and translations from the Spanish have appeared in such publications as The New Republic, Paris Review, Poetry Magazine, Yale Review, and others.
He received numerous awards and honors, including a Fulbright Fellowship, the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Alfred Hodder Fellowship in Humanities from Princeton University, an Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Posted on Friday, May 08, 2009

http://www.uwyo.edu/news/showrelease.asp?id=31201

[annalyzer]

http://www.seisvol.kishou.go.jp/fukuoka/509_Kuchierabujima/509_in3.jpg

[Faith]

Missing poet Craig Arnold presumed dead (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/05/missing-poet-craig-arnold-presumed-dead.html)

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0115707a7abc970b-800wi (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0115707a7abc970b-pi)

Award-winning poet Craig Arnold, who went missing in Japan in late April, is presumed to have died after a fall, his employer, the University of Wyoming, announced (http://www.uwyo.edu/news/showrelease.asp?id=31201) Friday. The university had established a fund to try to find Arnold after Japanese authorities ended their search.


The American search team that arrived tracked Arnold to the edge of "a high and dangerous cliff, and there is virtually no possibility he could have survived the fall," the release explained. Arnold was fascinated with volcanoes and had traveled to Kuchinoerabu-jima, a tiny Japanese island, to visit the volcano there. The 41-year-old author was in Japan on a creative exchange fellowship.


Arnold had been blogging about his trip (http://volcanopilgrim.wordpress.com/), which began in March. His posts are both travelogue and a glimpse of the poet at work, wrestling with words and ideas and the intersection of cultures.
You are volcano man? Satoshi asks. Yes, no. Poetry man. You are like haiku? Yes, very much. I think, Tomoko says very seriously, I think haiku have full of Japanese mind.


And so, with the help of your hosts and a pocket phrasebook, you spend the rest of the evening trying to compose a haiku in Japanese. You have had something in mind, actually, since your first night at the hostel. Basho would sometimes leave poems for his hosts, and you feel it would be a fine tradition to honor.


There is no native Japanese word for blueberry; the hostel’s name is just the English word for the fruit written phonetically, buruuberii. You are thinking of the tiny glass of blueberry juice you were served with dinner last night, how clean and piercing the sweetness, how pleasant it was to have warm dry feet. You are thinking of grapes left to freeze on the vine before pressing into Eiswein. You want to say something with blueberries, how they are all the sweeter because of the cold.


Snow makes the blueberry more sweet? Sugar, says Tomoko. You mean sugar makes blueberry sweeter? No, snow, or cold, what is cold. How to say frost? Shimo. But this is too short for the line.
Hatsushimo, Satoshi suggests, first frost. Japanese, we like first things.

初霜で
ブルーベリーが
甘くなる

Hatsushimo de
buruuberii ga
amakunaru

or, literally:
With the first frost
the blueberry
becomes sweet

It is the wrong kigo or season word, since blueberries ripen in August long before any frost, but you are not thinking horticulturally. You want to express how welcome you have felt here, how grateful to have a place to get out of the cold and the wind, a place of patience and kindness, a place not to be lost.

It’s a metaphor, you say, and they are baffled but too kind to say so. Maybe the blueberry – like you, a foreign import – doesn’t rate in the poetic company of plums and cherry blossoms. Or maybe what you wanted to be true about Asian poetry, its subtlety and suggestiveness and indirection, was wrong-headed, or simply beyond your power to capture.

You ask Tomoko to inscribe the poem in their guest book, since you can’t make the characters properly. It is thrilling to watch someone write in Japanese, the quick dart and dabble of the pen-point, the series of tiny paintings flowing out. They both seem pleased, and that is something.
The Poetry Foundation, which had also issued calls to help find Arnold after his disappearance, has a few of his poems online (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=220).

[SavannahStar]

Very sad!!!!!!!!