Kokinshu #168
Thursday, 24 November 2011 08:04![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer Written on the last day of Sixth Month.
On the path of the sky
where summer and autumn pass
coming and going,
is there a refreshing breeze
that is blowing to one side?
Book IV coming right up, covering the first half of autumn. Fair warning: leaves are to autumn what cherry blossoms are to spring, to wit, things that fall and scatter away -- and there are even more autumn than spring poems. Only a few more, but still.
natsu to aki to
yukikau sora no
kayoiji wa
katae suzushiki
kaze ya fukuramu
---L.
On the path of the sky
where summer and autumn pass
coming and going,
is there a refreshing breeze
that is blowing to one side?
—21 October 2011
(Original by Ôshikôchi no Mitsune.) The lunisolar Six Month (running roughly early-July to early-August), here called minatsuki, "waterless month," was the last month of summer. I'm not sure whether to understand the breeze as blowing "toward," "from," or "on" one side. And with that breeze, a poetic symbol of autumn, summer and this book come to a rapid end.Book IV coming right up, covering the first half of autumn. Fair warning: leaves are to autumn what cherry blossoms are to spring, to wit, things that fall and scatter away -- and there are even more autumn than spring poems. Only a few more, but still.
natsu to aki to
yukikau sora no
kayoiji wa
katae suzushiki
kaze ya fukuramu
---L.