Nanao Sakaki

This morning sitting here thinking of my love for Nanao. ' Break the mirror ' one of my favorite books.

here is what others had to say:

He looks and smells of the desert, skin rubbed with sage, hair washed in spring water and brushed into a pony tail, rucksack perfumed by the sweet incense of pinon coals. -John Brandi

On the crowded sidewalk outside Shinjuku's Fugetsudo coffeehouse I met Nanao Sakaki, the Japanese wandering poet, and soon his informal Bum Academy. Nanao had and still has a remarkable social mobility. Homeless people under bridges would offer tea and next we were sitting in some hidden luxury mansion. -Franco Beltrametti

From childhood I had some dream of mountain-walking. My father was a good walker. He had some dream to be a wandering poet like Basho or Ryokan or something like that but he never realized it. -Nanao, transcribed by Jirka Wein

Later he visited me when I had my own house in Bolinas. Looking at a bright pink passion flower, with purple, lime green and gold center, he said, That's not a real flower, is it? -Joanne Kyger

Nanao is himself childlike in his appreciation for simple, pure things: Strange bugs. Tops made from cardboard. The color of the moon. -Maggie Tai Sakaki Tucker

—he's an independent desert rat who has spent the last weeks in New Mexico & Arizona—in deserts where he is quite familiar and he'll be headed in a few days up north through Canada and Alaska and then who knows where?—a wondering classical Zen-like ah-hm i d i o t ! -Allen Ginsberg