Once Upon a time in Japan (A Folk Tale of Long Ago)

Once Upon a Time in Japan  (The Complete Version)

Once upon a time in a village in Japan where the timber grew
on a bank of a river, and the cuckoo sang and flew
in the quiet and open sky,
there lived a man silent and shy,
a woodcutter called Matsuo.

Every day he reached the heart of the silent wood
with an axe to chop, and stored under his hood
some bread and carried a flask of tea
and spent the afternoons in the shade of a tree.
And that was the tree he would never put under the
blow of the axe.

It was a fine pine, full grown and  shady,
cool in the summer and balmy in winter,
It grew and matured with Matsuo, strong and steady.
It spoke with a voice of the rustle of the leaves and the voice of a singer,
all in a silky undertone of a lover whispering secrets to the solitary
man resting at her feet.

Days went by and the tree and Matsuo grew in trust
believing in the bond that grew
and every day strengthened and blossomed
into an unspoken affirmation of love.

And one day a raven sitting on the branch of the tree,
sent across a message in panic
to another one in the far corner of the wood.
"Beware brother", it said, "The axe is going to fall on my tree,
 blow of the axe.