The site of the Venerable Butcho's hermitage was behind Unganji Temple in that province. Butcho once told me that he had used pine charcoal to inscribe a poem on a rock there:

tateyoko no	Ah, how I detest
goshaku ni taranu	building any shelter at all,
kusa no iori	even a grass-thatched
musubu mo kuyashi	hovel less than five feet square!
ame nakariseba	Were it not for the rainstorms...*

Staff in hand, I prepared to set out for the temple to see what was left of the hermitage. A number of people encouraged one another to accompany me, and I acquired a group of young companions who kept up a lively chatter along the way. We reached the lower limits of the temple grounds in no time. The mountains created an impression of great depth. The valley road stretched far into the distance, pines and cryptomerias rose in dark masses, the moss dripped with moisture, and there was a bite to the air, even though it was the Fourth Month. We viewed all of the Ten Sights and entered the main gate by way of a bridge.

Eager to locate the hermitage, I scrambled up the hill behind the temple to a tiny thatched structure on a rock, a lean-to built against a cave. It was like seeing the holy Yuanmiao's Death Gate or the monk Fayun's rock chamber. I left an impromptu verse on a pillar:

kitsutsuki mo	Even woodpeckers
io wa yaburazu	seem to spare the hermitage
natsu kodachi	in the summer grove.*