Cemetery amongst the trees

When I meandered on the back laneways of Kyoto’s Arashiyama, I came across a tiny burial ground.

A small pagoda marked its entrance. As I climbed the steps running up the centre of the Japanese cemetery, I passed a couple who tended a grave. While I stood at the highest point viewing the beautiful maples bordering the area, the man below bowed before his ancestor’s grave. His chanting rose with the incense he planted before the grave, and hovered over the site.