Kokinshu #309
Saturday, 29 September 2012 08:13![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer Written while going mushroom hunting in the northern hills with Archbishop Henjô.
I wish you'd gather
these colored leaves in your sleeves
and carry them out
-- so that someone might then see
the conclusion of autumn.
momijiba wa
sode ni kokiirete
moteidenamu
aki wa kagiri to
mimu hito no tame
---L.
I wish you'd gather
these colored leaves in your sleeves
and carry them out
-- so that someone might then see
the conclusion of autumn.
—16 & 19 September 2012
Original by Sosei. Approaching the end of the book, we get poems on the end of the season, starting with a domestic piece about gathering mushrooms with one's father. I'm fond of the contrast of "put in" and "take out" as elements of compound verbs, which is only one element of the poem's lush sound. Commentaries puzzle over why use sleeves given they'd have baskets for the mushrooms and over which presumably female relative the 'shrooms and leaves were for -- which amuses me, because what I'd rather know is why Sosei explicitly doesn't include himself in the action. "Someone" could also be "people," but the personal situation of the headnote suggests a specific. Compare to Sosei's similar #55, even though that is clearly inferior by virtue of not being a poem about 'shroom-hunting with Dad.momijiba wa
sode ni kokiirete
moteidenamu
aki wa kagiri to
mimu hito no tame
---L.